guess what this place was

Always makes me think of the morlocks in the film Time machine

Tannery ??

Sorry, I've changed my mind. It's Bert's Hodge Factory !!!

neither
was in Birkenhead and have been told during the war they made aspic for pies

Oleo works?

no
also I think some their stuff went into cosmetics

It must be some place where meat was processed - aspic is made from gelatin which is produced from rendering meat and bone.

good thinking
it was Thomson Brothers

eventually became a glue works and bought by British leather
which was next door and sandwiched between the tannery and the abattoir

Unfortunately Pinz its still Bandy's Hodge Factory, i did put in a hostile bid but he beat me back, but i am buying up plenty of shares and hope to have control soon.

I can well remember using the old animal glues, having to heat it up first before it was any good. The old saying about sending the horses to the glue factory springs to mind, they also used bones from other livestock, cows, fish etc. This is where the bones from the Rag and Bone man ended up. This type of glue when heated use to stink to high heaven.

Sorry Bert. Was confused (nowt new)and I had almost finished the 10yr old Tobermory !! Was also a bit jittery after a call from my brokers telling me to sell my shares in Heckmondwyke Hodge & Tripe Manufacturing Associates. Someone is buying them at inflated prices !!!

Back on topic (ish). The last time I used the melted-down horse glue stuff, it was in those two-part cast iron melting pots in school woodwork lessons. What a stink !!!

For those who haven't smelled the stuff, imagine several politicians and several bankers in a small room with no ventilation on a hot day ! (Mmmmm... maybe not that bad though)

Uh oh. The Off Topic Police are battering the door down......

My dad had one of those glue pots. He always called it Scotch glue; anyone else heard it called that?

A old bloke in lairds called it that Chris, in the moldloft, though Scotch was the manufacture of it, they still sell glue products now, scotch tape springs to mind.

One of the things I remember my Grandad saying was about when they used glue from bones and how it used to STINK.
Was it any good?

I remember it being ok as long as you used another fixer with it, i.e. nails, it was fine in joints. Nowhere near as good as the glues on the market today.

A lot of the bad smells going past the tannery were due to Thomson Bros - especially the one that smelt like bad eggs.

re pic of British Leather building next was a large shed bought from Camell Lairds and Thomsons was next to that going towards Camell Lairds main gate

The smell was really bad on a hot sunny day, especially around whats now know as Campbeltown rd.

LOL, that was probably my dad, Bert.
"Scotch", as in Scotch tape, is a trademark of the 3M company. I don't think they ever made the old glue. My dad used to buy it in thin slabs from a hardware shop.

I thought "Scotch glue" meant that no glue was used or it was invisibly joined - associated with "Scotch mist". No doubt colloquially diverse.

Remember calling it Scotch glue when I was at Wallasey Tech College in the late sixties, it did come in slabs which you broke up with a hammer and then melted down in a 2 piece pot ( like melting chocolate) and it stank to high heaven, it was also called animal glue as has been said it was made from bones etc, when set it formed a good waterproof joint but not on a par with todays glues, if you wanted to get it apart you had to use either steam or hot water to soften it up, you can still get it :-

http://www.sheppy.ltd.uk/adhesives/scotch.htm

Dave