Presto Tools Sheffield 07/2008

[spawney]

Completing the reports from my visit to Sheffield. These photo's are from the part live site that used to be Presto Tools. We got the ok to enter as long as we were out in an hour because they were knocking off and we would get locked in. The place has been totally trashed and it has been mostly stripped for scrap metal, the stairwells have random sections of stairs missing that made finding a route round quite difficult. Almost every window in there has been smashed and seems like there is constantly broken glass underfoot.
I don't know much on the history of this place but I'm sure someone will have the info, anyway here's the pics of the devastation.


Reception area. Every window here had been smashed as had every thing else here.


1990's PABX telephone system, smashed & stripped.



What was offices. Everything trashed.


Pipes & ceilings leaking some strange toxic looking goo.


More broken windows.


Fire hose.


View through window.


"Big Ear" dumb waiter machinery.



Lift machinery.



Roof shots



Views form the roof.
Unfortunately we were limited on time and my camera batteries went flat so I didn't get many photos.
And it wouldn't be a urbex report without a picture of peeling paint

 

[Jethro]

A few more...

Heres a few of mine...

Slightly Unsafe Looking Steps

Power On The Roof

Lift Control Relays

Messy Office

Chain Lift

Workshop Space

And theres some more on Flickr...

 

[no1rich]

Some of my best tools are Presto's....
Looks like quite a big place, hope you get back

 

[thecollector]

I used Presto stocks & dies, are this company still in existance? probably all Chinese engineered junk these days..

Yours

 

[zero seven four]

I used Presto stocks & dies, are this company still in existance? probably all Chinese engineered junk these days..

Yours

yes and no there still there, ie why this is live, and we need to ask, this a long saga of fuck up, i still understand they make stuff in Sheffield and i have asked for a look around the part that is still in use as it is the older the location and still no reply, the part we look around is owned by a friend from lane walker and is part rented and i have a deal just to pop in say is it cool and numbers of people going in etc, plus the time we are going go to be there..

 

[zero seven four]

In 1843 a young Sheffield mechanic named John Easterbrook began working for himself. By 1852 he had entered into a partnership and traded as the firm of Easterbrook & Scatchard working as toolmakers and machinists inSuffolk Road. Two years later the firm was known as Easterbrook, Scatchard & Drury, and at its Albert Works in Suffolk Road was making ratchet braces, hammers, spanners, screw stocks, taps and dies, lathes and all kinds of tools made to order.

Being an engineer had become the trade to be in; a new, young, dynamic industry, which everyone said, would provide a job, a good well paid job, for life
for those young men lucky enough to get themselves the right training.

The business became a limited company Easterbrook Allcard & Co Ltd in October 1897 with Harry Allcard, James Allcard's son, becoming chairman.

By the time of James Allcard's death the once small enterprise had become a substantial concern with fine offices, a number of turning shops, an erecting shop and a number of smithies. Contracts for the firm's output had been obtained from such prominent clients as the

British Admiralty, the War Office, the India Office, railways both at home and abroad, and even the German Navy was buying Easterbrook Allcard tools. And what tools. Made for engineers, boiler makers, smiths, ship builders and plate layers the range of tools now produced was truly astonishing. The firm's 26th catalogue published in 1900 lists around 200 different hand tools being offered for sale in addition to the company's
machine tools.

Around 1858 the name changed yet again to Easterbrook and Allcard with premises in both Leadmill Road as well as Suffolk Road.

The business moved to its present location, a new Albert Works, in Penistone Road in 1869.Founder John Easterbrook now drops out of the story and the business baton passed exclusively to his partner James Allcard. When Allcard died in 1887 his devoted employees hired top hats and other regalia to attend the funeral so great was their respect for him.

The forecourt of the Albert Works was sold to Sheffield Corporation in 1912 in order to widen Penistone Road, the proceeds going to erecting a new grinding shop and in 1914 to building a river wall. In the midst of the First World War, the house adjoining the works, subsequently used as a caretaker's house and warehouse, was bought. A works canteen was built too. The company also purchased land at the comer of Penistone Road and Hobson Avenue adjoining the works, which would later be used as a garage.

The 1960s was to be a decade characterised by even more building works: a new workshop being built at the river end of Anlaby Street when the old steel warehouse was demolished.

Lifted from:

http://www.presto-tools.co.uk/History.html

This place is part live access is with agreement of the people using part of the building and i have e mailed presto tools to have a look round the part they are now using, i aim to go back and do a short film of the space and do read http://www.presto-tools.co.uk/History.html give me a pm if there is a desire to go..

 

[thecollector]

Presto Tools.reply

Thanks for the read ZERO..Alas Sheffield is just too far for me to visit!!