I'm looking for a company that was based in Birkenhead in the late 60's early 70's called Fibreglass Ltd. They were part of the Pilkington Group and made glass fibre matting to the car industry and for baths etc. They were based in either Gautby Road or Valley Road. Does anyone have any information about them and when they moved or closed? Photographs would be fantastic.

Thank you

Bill

Apart from the name change from "glass fibre limited" to "fibreglass ltd" in 1944 I can't find anything relating to this area other than confirmation it did have a division in Birkenhead.

Liverpool University Special collection has a study on the company 1968-1970 but access is closed to these documents.

Wasn't Fibreglass in Valley Road, where Park Hampers is now ?
I think the Park Hampers main building was once a bakery - Moores Luxury Loaf. Fibreglass were either there before them, or at least on the same industrial estate.
Would it be worth contacting Park Hampers in case there are any old photos lying around ?

This is brilliant, Thanks!

I know they were a division of Pilkington Glass and may contact them too but Park Hampers is a good place to start. We had conflicting information as to where they were situated so that's cleared that up and it looks like Valley Road it is. Thanks.

I haven't been able to find any archive photographs of Valley road from around 1970 at all. Any ideas?

Just heard from a local historian, Fibreglass Ltd moved from Valley Road in 1980/81 to Wrexham Ind Est and that a Birkenhead born man formulated the recipe for the mouldings to perfect the manufacture of car body shells from glass fibre. They supplied Standard Triumph in Speke and that most of the technicians ended up at TVR in Blackpool. They are still trading and part of a large US firm now.

The factory site became the Tranmere training ground apparently.

I would still love to find some old photographs of the factory.

worked at Fibreglass in Valley Road in 1969/70. It was a crap job but the money was good. Had to pack it in because the fibreglass got in to everything and we were finding it amongst the kids clothes. Little bits stuck in the skin and it took years for it all to work its way out, you kept feeling it catch against clothes when you was dressing/undressing. They were a good crowd of people to work with as I remember. It was hot work, I used to keep all the bobbins of fibre thread topped up on their racks and moving into the machine which chopped it up into pieces and went into a mixer which combined it with the gooey stuff which was then extruded as fibre matting onto long conveyors. Not exactly happy days but it was alright, you earned your corn.

Ouch!

The best thing I remember about Fibreglass at Bidston was the stuff they used to throw on the tip. For example, when they had a duff batch of chopped strand matting where the resin had not taken and the strands were all coming apart, then they would dump that. They would also dump quite a few metres of good stuff that was either side of the fault. A "Steptoe" like me would salvage the good bits. I used a load of it to reinforce the asphalt on a big flat roof and did lots of repairs on my old VW (splitscreen) camper.

They also had some sort of Research & Development Dept because at times you would find all sorts of "interesting" mouldings. The ones I remember best were obviously experimental lampposts. In effect these were tapered fibreglass tubes around 16" at one end 6" at the other and around 5-6 metres long. Sneaking those off the tip was a challenge, but in those days there was little or no control! Usually they were coloured in all sorts of gaudy colours - bright yellow, green red, blue or even a mixture. The great thing was the narrow end of one would fit nicely into the wide end of another so you could build a very long tube. That is what we did. The tube was buried in the ground on a property and used to carry water pipes, electric cables, phone/ intercom extensions etc from the house to an outbuilding around 100 metres away. Fish wires were left in the tubes so that extra cables etc could be fed through at a later date. Worked a treat.

Snod

Earlier pictures of Vernon's, from the 1951 Birkenhead Official Guide

\Blimey Snod, if you'd patented that idea and put it into action you may have been a big business man now.

Just thought. There was also a big bakery down Valley Road/Gautby Road. I used to work there during the week when I was on leave so that I could go on the thrash at weekends. My mates were all working anyway so the night shifts were a doddle. Can't remember if it was a Co-op bakery, or Hurst, something like that.

This is exactly the period I'm researching, do you remember a red glass fibre Mini the factory owned at the time? Registered 1970 in Liverpool. Do you remember a Trevor Seddon who worked there? He used to live in Leigh and drive the Mini back and forth to test the structure of the shell. The shell was made by Peel in the Isle of Man for BMC from Fibreglass Ltd's fibre glass. Fibre Glass had it until 1983 and must have been part of the R&D section.





As you can see it is Left Hand Drive, any memories you have of this car or anyone involved would be much appreciated.

Are there any other photo's of the factories other than the Vernon's one?

Thanks

Bill

The Gordon car built a vernon's factroy.