So to start things off what a place the scale of this site is unreal it just keeps going and going. Unfortunately the interesting parts of this site were in darkness so it was hard to capture decent pictures, including the vast tunnels that seem to go on forever.
A Little History:
In 1934 Eli Lilly and Company established its first office outside the USA at 2-4 Dean Street in Central London. At the time Eli Lilly was one of America’s largest suppliers of medicines, but its export business was in the hands of local agents.
The Dean Street office was one further step towards internationalisation and was followed within two years by a decision to build a manufacturing plant in the UK.
It is not recorded why Lilly chose Basingstoke for its manufacturing site, but the reasons are not hard to guess. High on the list of priorities must have been the sophisticated railway link-ups which put Basingstoke in touch with the whole country. The original factory was built facing the main railway line and overlooking Lilly’s own private siding, by the side of which was built a coal fired boiler house. Easy accessibility to London, the largest market for pharmaceuticals in the country, and to the port of Southampton, through which supplies and people from America could come, must also have been an important consideration. Finally not the least attractive feature must have been the availability of building land.
Lilly bought quite a lot of land – approx 23 acres of farmland between Kingsclere Road and the railway – on what was then the outskirts of the town. One of the Company’s oldest employees recalled the site as it was before development. “I can remember it as a wheat field where my father worked. After school I had to cycle here to bring his tea. Not the big gates to enter then, but a five bar gate leading down a rough track. Approximately where the front steps are now stood about four or five straw ricks which my father used to build and thatch, and while he sat on a bundle of thatching spars, I used to sit up on the ladder and watch the trains steaming by.”
Nearby were Lancaster Road, Merton Road and Merton Farm, names which encapsulated the history of the land. The Earl of Lancaster had left it to Merton College, Oxford from which Lilly bought it in 1937.
Construction began in February 1938, with the removal of 10,000 cubic yards of chalk from what was to become the basement of the factory building, followed soon after by the burrowing of a tunnel to carry steam and service pipes from the boiler house by the railway siding up to the main building.
The winter of 1938 saw the traditional topping out ceremony, the building little more than a shell, the windows of the upper storey – their iron fitments not yet having arrived – still gaping holes. The big six floor building, a brilliant sugar loaf white, stood on its own. No other landmark contested the ground between it and the water tower of the Park Prewett Mental Hospital.
Now for the good bit:
A Little History:
In 1934 Eli Lilly and Company established its first office outside the USA at 2-4 Dean Street in Central London. At the time Eli Lilly was one of America’s largest suppliers of medicines, but its export business was in the hands of local agents.
The Dean Street office was one further step towards internationalisation and was followed within two years by a decision to build a manufacturing plant in the UK.
It is not recorded why Lilly chose Basingstoke for its manufacturing site, but the reasons are not hard to guess. High on the list of priorities must have been the sophisticated railway link-ups which put Basingstoke in touch with the whole country. The original factory was built facing the main railway line and overlooking Lilly’s own private siding, by the side of which was built a coal fired boiler house. Easy accessibility to London, the largest market for pharmaceuticals in the country, and to the port of Southampton, through which supplies and people from America could come, must also have been an important consideration. Finally not the least attractive feature must have been the availability of building land.
Lilly bought quite a lot of land – approx 23 acres of farmland between Kingsclere Road and the railway – on what was then the outskirts of the town. One of the Company’s oldest employees recalled the site as it was before development. “I can remember it as a wheat field where my father worked. After school I had to cycle here to bring his tea. Not the big gates to enter then, but a five bar gate leading down a rough track. Approximately where the front steps are now stood about four or five straw ricks which my father used to build and thatch, and while he sat on a bundle of thatching spars, I used to sit up on the ladder and watch the trains steaming by.”
Nearby were Lancaster Road, Merton Road and Merton Farm, names which encapsulated the history of the land. The Earl of Lancaster had left it to Merton College, Oxford from which Lilly bought it in 1937.
Construction began in February 1938, with the removal of 10,000 cubic yards of chalk from what was to become the basement of the factory building, followed soon after by the burrowing of a tunnel to carry steam and service pipes from the boiler house by the railway siding up to the main building.
The winter of 1938 saw the traditional topping out ceremony, the building little more than a shell, the windows of the upper storey – their iron fitments not yet having arrived – still gaping holes. The big six floor building, a brilliant sugar loaf white, stood on its own. No other landmark contested the ground between it and the water tower of the Park Prewett Mental Hospital.
Now for the good bit:
