The Fire at Dock Road

On the evening of the 21st August 1962 a fire broke out in the Works. It spread rapidly through the factory, which was almost totally gutted, the damage being assessed at £50000.

Tragically, a young employee called Barry Wells saw the fire when he was leaving the Youth Club across the road. He went into the factory to try and fight the fire but was killed in the attempt. Both his father and grandfather were cycle dealers in Worksop.

At the time the factory was turning out 15000 cycles annually. New premises were quickly found in Kilton, a suburb of Worksop, and the whole workforce turned out to get production going again. Remarkably, production was resumed only five weeks later.

 

 

 

 

The aftermath of the fire is shown in these images kindly supplied by Phil Nicholson:

 

© Copyright 2004-08 Jeremy P.Mortimore