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The workforce at the Alan Nuttall Partnership in Dudley has opened the doors on a long-locked room to find the headquarters of an old company fire brigade almost perfectly preserved, more than half a century after it stood down.

The story has been featured by the BBC with the story being read by over 80,000 people and the interest has spread far and wide; into Europe, the US and even Australia!

The huge National Works site, which has belonged to the Alan Nuttall Partnership Limited since 1986 – some thirty years, has also been home to these items which pre-date Nuttalls, by some decades.

For those who may not know, the factory was built in 1915, on the instruction of David Lloyd George, as a munitions factory for the First World War. The manufacturing continues on the site to this day, although the products have changed over the years, once home to the infamous Bean Cars. For several decades later it was to the Co-operative Wholesale Society( CWS) – Dudley Co-op.

The vintage equipment dates from that period, when CWS had their

own works brigade 1934-1971 according to current research.

As Nuttalls celebrated their fiftieth year in business in 2016, there had been an ongoing hunt for historical stories from around factory floor. The 50 Years of Nuttalls campaign has featured long standing employees and celebrated our fantastic past project work. The story of the old Fire Station was mentioned and the team couldn’ t resist the curiosity, so it was opened up to take a look, and gain access to the firefighters’ old station, which has been mothballed behind a padlocked door on the ground floor since the 1950s.

“ We’ ve always known it was here,” said Matt Hornblower, Operations Director,“ but this is such a large site, there are little corners that no one goes into. But recently we came in and had a good look around, and we still keep finding things. Anna Bamford our marketing manager was keen to follow up on the story when I mentioned it to her and we made our way across the site to take a look. We were both in awe of how wonderfully preserved the room is, despite a bit of dust, there are drinks, buckets of fire sand and even a newspaper!”

The most impressive piece in there is a pump trailer, powered by a petrol or diesel engine. Still bright red, with‘ CWS DUDLEY’ lettered in gold on the front, it looks as though all it needs is a bit of a wipe-down. There is still air in its tyres and just a few spots of oil on the floor beneath. The documentation which is still with it suggests it dates from the 1950s, when the Co-op had its own on-site fire brigade; a necessity for factories as large as this one, even once a national fire service had been established.

The trailer pump still has its number plate: RJ9012, which belongs to the trailer and we have been informed that this supports it being from around 1934. They were part of a limited run and each had a consecutive number plate – right up to 9,999. I wonder how many are still around today?

Perhaps even more striking are the uniform jackets and caps, still hanging from hooks on the green-painted walls. In some cases the names of their wearers are still chalked above them, as if they walked out one day and never came back. Names still in evidence include I Silk, W. Price and A Round.