Introduction
Me and @Wastelandr were keen to meet up for the first time as we have spoken quite a bit and we are both not a million miles away from each other, Wastelandr suggested taking a look at this factory which has been posted previously on here by Speed, he mentioned a factory in Sudbury and I looked at my map and realised the same one was already on my radar as I came across it a while back on satellite imagery, so last weekend we met up to give it a go and we were keen to get it ticked off.
Information & History
Lucas CAV’s presence in the Suffolk town of Sudbury started out as The CAV Engineering Company at the tail end of World War II in 1944. The CAV name is derived from the initials of the founder, Charles Anthony Vandervell. Vandervell started out by making electric storage batteries in London in the late 19th Century. Originally, the company based its main operations in Acton, West London but Sudbury was picked as another site to move some of its operations away from the big smoke during the war to ensure the company could still operate if something catastrophic happened to the London site. CAV also had a presence in many other locations across the UK including Birmingham, Gloucester, Rochester, and Burnley amongst others. The company took out a lease of New Hall located in New Street, in the heart of the town centre to start with. This building was formerly an old Victorian silk factory. Later, the company outgrew this site and moved to Cornard Road and later to the site featured in this report which is sometimes referred to as Chilton Works, this move occurred in the 1960s. Thanks to the sheer scale of the site in Sudbury, it was renowned as one of the town’s largest employers and also offered a range of apprenticeships and training schemes to get unskilled workers on board at the company.
The factory under construction in the early 1960s:
An old job advertisement for the CAV factory on a local bus service:
CAV manufactured diesel injectors, turbochargers, nozzles, and filters for diesel engines, with a particular focus on larger truck engines for automotive firms such as Volvo & DAF. At its peak, the company was the largest manufacturer of fuel injection equipment in the world.
There is also a Social Club on site most recently known as the Delphi Centre. This was formerly called The CAV Sports & Social Club and had two bars, a dancefloor & stage in addition to some other features such as snooker tables at one point. Many events were hosted here including employee reunions. It also has an interesting modernist design which is very 60s and features a terrace and lots of large glass windows.
The 22-acre plant closed in July 2020 following a decline in the demand for diesel vehicles. Some of the operations moved to Romania and the company faced criticism as it is thought the main reason for this change was to reduce labour costs. The company began winding down its Sudbury operations back in 2015 where it cut 176 local jobs in favour of its Eastern European operations. The 2020 closure was announced three years prior to closure, in 2017.
Around 520 jobs were lost at the time of closure. In its final two weeks of operating, just one Injector tester machine was in use with less than 20 employees on site. Just before the site closed, it appeared on the market for a guide price of £5m, it was then purchased by Future Properties Industrial Ltd.
The Explore
We parked up in the area and started to have a look around the perimeter, it looked pretty secure on street view and we thought a fence climb would be necessary, but luckily that was not the case. We noticed there were a few fresh boards but thankfully there was a slightly less obvious way in which we were pleased with. We ended up spending a total of eight hours in the main factory and social club setting up shots, looking around and having a chat as we went around. This site is probably in my top 3 (or top 5 at least) best places I have visited due to the sheer scale of the main factory floor and the lovely boiler house and underground parts with the pumps, tanks and pipework etc. I really did not expect it to be this good.
Anyway enough waffle! Onto the photos starting with the externals of the main factory building:
The front end of the building features the main entrance and some of the offices:
This is what the site entrance looked like years ago. This photo was taken from an old employee brochure. Not much has changed:
Cool streetlamps, with the smoking shelters on the right:
I struggled to get a shot of the entire building in from the ground, but I did manage to just about fit it all in (without using my wider lens) from the roof of the social club:
After gaining access to the building, we started off at the main factory floor. I’m surprised with how much I liked this, it is a shame it was stripped but the colours and lighting are lovely. I don’t think I have been in a ‘room’ of this size before, a few sites I have been to definitely come close but are still smaller compared to this.
The ceiling is quite interesting. It has turned into a yellow/orangeish colour over the years from oil residue from the various machines. The floor is also extremely sticky so a lot of this residue had dripped off the ceiling. These details really highlight the heavy industry we are working with here.
There are also several pre-fab style structures around the shop floor which were used for a variety of different operations. One of them reads ‘Truck Assembly & Test’ above the entrance:
There’s also a large extractor system in place for all the nasties the machinery would have chucked out.
A few from the other side of the main floor:
A large warehouse room. Perhaps this would have been used for storing finished products ready for loading onto trucks, but there is also another large storage-style building separate from the main building so I’m not 100% sure:
Upstairs is a vast but stripped area which was used for the manufacture of Filters. Filters are an important part of a vehicle as they prevent damage to engines by filtering out dirt and particles when the fuel reaches the injectors.
There is also a nice old elevator in here with those zig-zag doors. I love these:
CONTINUED...
Me and @Wastelandr were keen to meet up for the first time as we have spoken quite a bit and we are both not a million miles away from each other, Wastelandr suggested taking a look at this factory which has been posted previously on here by Speed, he mentioned a factory in Sudbury and I looked at my map and realised the same one was already on my radar as I came across it a while back on satellite imagery, so last weekend we met up to give it a go and we were keen to get it ticked off.
Information & History
Lucas CAV’s presence in the Suffolk town of Sudbury started out as The CAV Engineering Company at the tail end of World War II in 1944. The CAV name is derived from the initials of the founder, Charles Anthony Vandervell. Vandervell started out by making electric storage batteries in London in the late 19th Century. Originally, the company based its main operations in Acton, West London but Sudbury was picked as another site to move some of its operations away from the big smoke during the war to ensure the company could still operate if something catastrophic happened to the London site. CAV also had a presence in many other locations across the UK including Birmingham, Gloucester, Rochester, and Burnley amongst others. The company took out a lease of New Hall located in New Street, in the heart of the town centre to start with. This building was formerly an old Victorian silk factory. Later, the company outgrew this site and moved to Cornard Road and later to the site featured in this report which is sometimes referred to as Chilton Works, this move occurred in the 1960s. Thanks to the sheer scale of the site in Sudbury, it was renowned as one of the town’s largest employers and also offered a range of apprenticeships and training schemes to get unskilled workers on board at the company.
The factory under construction in the early 1960s:
An old job advertisement for the CAV factory on a local bus service:
CAV manufactured diesel injectors, turbochargers, nozzles, and filters for diesel engines, with a particular focus on larger truck engines for automotive firms such as Volvo & DAF. At its peak, the company was the largest manufacturer of fuel injection equipment in the world.
There is also a Social Club on site most recently known as the Delphi Centre. This was formerly called The CAV Sports & Social Club and had two bars, a dancefloor & stage in addition to some other features such as snooker tables at one point. Many events were hosted here including employee reunions. It also has an interesting modernist design which is very 60s and features a terrace and lots of large glass windows.
The 22-acre plant closed in July 2020 following a decline in the demand for diesel vehicles. Some of the operations moved to Romania and the company faced criticism as it is thought the main reason for this change was to reduce labour costs. The company began winding down its Sudbury operations back in 2015 where it cut 176 local jobs in favour of its Eastern European operations. The 2020 closure was announced three years prior to closure, in 2017.
Around 520 jobs were lost at the time of closure. In its final two weeks of operating, just one Injector tester machine was in use with less than 20 employees on site. Just before the site closed, it appeared on the market for a guide price of £5m, it was then purchased by Future Properties Industrial Ltd.
The Explore
We parked up in the area and started to have a look around the perimeter, it looked pretty secure on street view and we thought a fence climb would be necessary, but luckily that was not the case. We noticed there were a few fresh boards but thankfully there was a slightly less obvious way in which we were pleased with. We ended up spending a total of eight hours in the main factory and social club setting up shots, looking around and having a chat as we went around. This site is probably in my top 3 (or top 5 at least) best places I have visited due to the sheer scale of the main factory floor and the lovely boiler house and underground parts with the pumps, tanks and pipework etc. I really did not expect it to be this good.
Anyway enough waffle! Onto the photos starting with the externals of the main factory building:
The front end of the building features the main entrance and some of the offices:
This is what the site entrance looked like years ago. This photo was taken from an old employee brochure. Not much has changed:
Cool streetlamps, with the smoking shelters on the right:
I struggled to get a shot of the entire building in from the ground, but I did manage to just about fit it all in (without using my wider lens) from the roof of the social club:
After gaining access to the building, we started off at the main factory floor. I’m surprised with how much I liked this, it is a shame it was stripped but the colours and lighting are lovely. I don’t think I have been in a ‘room’ of this size before, a few sites I have been to definitely come close but are still smaller compared to this.
The ceiling is quite interesting. It has turned into a yellow/orangeish colour over the years from oil residue from the various machines. The floor is also extremely sticky so a lot of this residue had dripped off the ceiling. These details really highlight the heavy industry we are working with here.
There are also several pre-fab style structures around the shop floor which were used for a variety of different operations. One of them reads ‘Truck Assembly & Test’ above the entrance:
There’s also a large extractor system in place for all the nasties the machinery would have chucked out.
A few from the other side of the main floor:
A large warehouse room. Perhaps this would have been used for storing finished products ready for loading onto trucks, but there is also another large storage-style building separate from the main building so I’m not 100% sure:
Upstairs is a vast but stripped area which was used for the manufacture of Filters. Filters are an important part of a vehicle as they prevent damage to engines by filtering out dirt and particles when the fuel reaches the injectors.
There is also a nice old elevator in here with those zig-zag doors. I love these:
CONTINUED...
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. Jokes aside superbly shot, whilst we got a few similar angles you've also captured some other nice ones I didn't think of. Report wise it's a cracker, I know a lot of work went into it and it definitely makes for a nice update from Speed's original report which gave an insider's perspective. Also liked the original photo of the exterior which was a good find.
