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Banner Lane was the site of a wartime
shadow factory A shadow is a dark area where light from a light source is blocked by an opaque object. It occupies all of the three-dimensional volume behind an object with light in front of it. The cross section of a shadow is a two- dimensional silhouette, ...
in
Coventry Coventry ( or ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its ...
,
England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
, run by
Standard Motor Company The Standard Motor Company Limited was a motor vehicle manufacturer, founded in Coventry, England, in 1903 by Reginald Walter Maudslay. For many years, it manufactured Ferguson TE20 tractors powered by its Vanguard engine. All Standard's tracto ...
and dedicated to making
Bristol Hercules The Bristol Hercules is a 14-cylinder two-row radial aircraft engine designed by Sir Roy Fedden and produced by the Bristol Engine Company starting in 1939. It was the most numerous of their single sleeve valve ( Burt-McCollum, or Argyll, typ ...
aero engines. The war-surplus plant was taken over by Standard in 1946 to make
Ferguson tractor Ferguson may refer to: Places Canada *Ferguson Avenue (Hamilton, Ontario) *Ferguson, British Columbia *Mount Ferguson (Ontario), a mountain in Temagami, Ontario United States *Ferguson, a meteorite fall in North Carolina *Ferguson, Arkansas * F ...
s and it was made Standard's registered office. After the 1959 sale of Standard's part-ownership of the tractor partnership to
Massey Ferguson Massey Ferguson Limited is an American agricultural machinery manufacturer. The company was established in 1953 through the merger of farm equipment makers Massey-Harris of Canada and the Ferguson Company of the United Kingdom. It was based in T ...
, it became Massey Ferguson's base for tractor-building operations until production ceased in 2002 and the site was redeveloped for housing.


Shadow factory

In May 1939, the
Air Ministry The Air Ministry was a department of the Government of the United Kingdom with the responsibility of managing the affairs of the Royal Air Force, that existed from 1918 to 1964. It was under the political authority of the Secretary of State ...
sought a facility to manufacture Bristol Hercules aero engines and construction of a plant commenced later that year on an 80-
acre The acre is a unit of land area used in the imperial Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imp ...
(320,000  m2) green-field site just outside Coventry. With over 1 million 
square feet The square foot (plural square feet; abbreviated sq. ft, sf, or ft2; also denoted by '2) is an imperial unit and U.S. customary unit (non- SI, non-metric) of area, used mainly in the United States and partially in Canada, the United Kingdom, Bang ...
(93,000 m2) of floor space, the Banner Lane site was one of the largest shadow factories erected at Government expense, costing £1.7 million to build and set up for production. The new plant luckily missed the summer and autumn 1940 bombing raids of the
Coventry Blitz The Coventry Blitz ( blitz: from the German word ''Blitzkrieg'' meaning "lightning war" ) or Coventration of the city was a series of bombing raids that took place on the British city of Coventry. The city was bombed many times during the Sec ...
and was fully functioning before the end of that year. Its curious similarity to other shadow factories was because the buildings were designed by the Government's own architects. The business was run, for a £40,000 per annum management fee, by Standard Motor Company enabling products and plant to benefit from Standard's expertise in making similar, if much less complex, products. With some of the parts being produced at
Rover Rover may refer to: People * Constance Rover (1910–2005), English historian * Jolanda de Rover (born 1963), Dutch swimmer * Rover Thomas (c. 1920–1998), Indigenous Australian artist Places * Rover, Arkansas, US * Rover, Missouri, US * ...
's shadow factory at
Acocks Green Acocks Green is an area and ward of southeast Birmingham, England. It is named after the Acock family, who built a large house there in 1370. Acocks Green is one of four wards making up Yardley formal district. It is occasionally spelled "Acoc ...
, the Hercules engines were complex machines of 38.7 
litre The litre (international spelling) or liter (American English spelling) (SI symbols L and l, other symbol used: ℓ) is a metric unit of volume. It is equal to 1 cubic decimetre (dm3), 1000 cubic centimetres (cm3) or 0.001 cubic metre (m3). ...
s (2,360  cu in) capacity having 14 cylinders in two radial rows using
sleeve valve The sleeve valve is a type of valve mechanism for piston engines, distinct from the usual poppet valve. Sleeve valve engines saw use in a number of pre-World War II luxury cars and in the United States in the Willys-Knight car and light truck. ...
s rather than
poppet valves A poppet valve (also called mushroom valve) is a valve typically used to control the timing and quantity of gas or vapor flow into an engine. It consists of a hole or open-ended chamber, usually round or oval in cross-section, and a plug, usual ...
, and with an output of 1,290–1,735 
horsepower Horsepower (hp) is a unit of measurement of power, or the rate at which work is done, usually in reference to the output of engines or motors. There are many different standards and types of horsepower. Two common definitions used today are the ...
(960–1,294  kW) depending on application. File:Massey Ferguson, Banner Lane, Coventry - geograph.org.uk - 47171.jpg, Banner Lane plant File:Bristol Hercules 763 (3874363040).jpg, A Bristol Hercules bare engine cutaway display.
The engine was 50 inches (1.3 m) in diameter. File:Bristol Hercules Kbely.JPG, Engine example on display at the
Prague Aviation Museum, Kbely Kbely Aviation Museum (''Letecké Muzeum Kbely'') is the largest aviation museum in the Czech Republic and one of the largest of its kind in Europe. It is located to the north-east of Prague, at the military airport Kbely. Creation of the museum ...
When production ended in 1945 more than 20,000 Hercules engines had been built. Other wartime products managed by Standard but made at
Canley Canley is a suburban neighbourhood located in CV4, south-west Coventry, England. Canley became part of Coventry as a result of successive encroachment of the latter's boundaries between 1928 and 1932, having historically been part of the St ...
, the location of a further shadow factory nearby, included the
Bristol Beaufighter The Bristol Type 156 Beaufighter (often called the Beau) is a British multi-role aircraft developed during the Second World War by the Bristol Aeroplane Company. It was originally conceived as a heavy fighter variant of the Bristol Beaufort ...
and
De Havilland Mosquito The de Havilland DH.98 Mosquito is a British twin-engined, shoulder-winged, multirole combat aircraft, introduced during the Second World War. Unusual in that its frame was constructed mostly of wood, it was nicknamed the "Wooden Wonder", or ...
twin-engined fighter bombers together with a variety of other matériel.


Tractor production

After the war the shadow factory was no longer required by
Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...
. However, discussions between Standard and
Harry Ferguson Henry George "Harry" Ferguson (4 November 188425 October 1960) was a British mechanic and inventor who is noted for his role in the development of the modern agricultural tractor and its three point linkage system, for being the first person ...
in 1945 to build Ferguson tractors in the UK resulted in Standard signing a 10-year lease for the Banner Lane plant costing £36,000 per annum. The intention was to build up to 500 tractors per day for which Standard would receive a fee for each one produced, and from mid-1946 until the end of 1947 over 20,800 new tractors had been built. At the height of production over 6,000 people were employed, and in 10 years more than 500,000 Ferguson TE tractors had been produced at Banner Lane. Disagreements between Standard and Ferguson culminated in Standard breaking all connections with both Ferguson and tractor production in the summer of 1959. By this time Harry Ferguson Ltd had formed a merger with Massey Harris to become Massey-Harris-Ferguson, later shortened to
Massey Ferguson Massey Ferguson Limited is an American agricultural machinery manufacturer. The company was established in 1953 through the merger of farm equipment makers Massey-Harris of Canada and the Ferguson Company of the United Kingdom. It was based in T ...
. All Standard's tractor assets were sold to Massey Ferguson as of 31 August 1959 and Banner Lane entered the sole ownership of Massey Ferguson. By 2000, the plant covered 1.8 million ft2 (170,000 m2) and tractor output was in excess of 70,000 per annum, the majority for export; however, increasing numbers of Massey Ferguson tractors were being built elsewhere, most notably at
Beauvais Beauvais ( , ; pcd, Bieuvais) is a city and commune in northern France, and prefecture of the Oise département, in the Hauts-de-France region, north of Paris. The commune of Beauvais had a population of 56,020 , making it the most populous ...
in France. In order to rationalise production it was decided that either Beauvais or Banner Lane would be shut down, but pressure from the French Government and workers made Beauvais the more difficult of the two to close, sealing Banner Lane's fate. Production came to an end on Christmas Eve 2002 when the last tractor, number 3,307,996 was completed.


Demise

The enormous task of decommissioning, demolition of the plant and site clearance ended with the demolition of the 16-storey tower block on 8 July 2012 using high-explosive charges. and a housing development called Bannerbrook Park now occupies the site on which it has been planned to build in the region of 1,000 new homes, together with an entire infrastructure including shops and a school. A Massey Ferguson memorial to the tractor production facility has been erected on the site.


Namesake

Banner Lane is the eponym of Banner Lane Ltd, an Executive Search firm founded at the site in 2020. The recruitment company is based in Royal Leamington Spa, United Kingdom and specialises in recruiting SC and DV cleared jobs within the UK Defence and Security sector.https://bannerlane.com


References


External links

{{Commons category, Massey Ferguson Banner Lane
Video made at the time of the demolition of the tower block

Aerial photograph of the original factory site illustrating wartime camouflage, taken April 1946
Aircraft assembly plants in England Manufacturing plants in England Buildings and structures in Coventry British shadow factories