Lost with Bargates Richard Pinker April 2024
Of particular interest in you recent issue was the comment on Bargates. I remember when they built Bargates because the field above it was our local site for toboggan runs. Looking back, snow was an important part of my childhood, and everybody had to have a toboggan. Mine was made by my father and it had steel packing strips nailed to the runners to stop the wood wearing when dragged on the bare ground. The bottom of the run flatted out where the houses are now but, during their building, we had to avoid the fence and move across to above the tunnel.
My best friend was due to move from the Box Hill bungalows to Bargates but ended up at the top of Barn Piece. Later, he started work as a pattern maker apprentice at Hoopers which was between Bargates and the bottom of Barnpiece. Looking at Google maps this now appears to be houses but the candle works still looks the same. In my time it was a rubber works making rubber moldings. These were distributed in sack loads to the locals who removed the flashings with scissors for a few coppers - later it made tennis balls.
There does not seem to have been much other industrial activity bar the stone industry in Box. I can only remember the water mill, Brickells ice-cream site in the Ley, and Moon Aircraft at the Clift, where off-cuts of Perspex were dumped on the Tumps at Box Hill and burnt by us as torches to explore the quarries.
My best friend was due to move from the Box Hill bungalows to Bargates but ended up at the top of Barn Piece. Later, he started work as a pattern maker apprentice at Hoopers which was between Bargates and the bottom of Barnpiece. Looking at Google maps this now appears to be houses but the candle works still looks the same. In my time it was a rubber works making rubber moldings. These were distributed in sack loads to the locals who removed the flashings with scissors for a few coppers - later it made tennis balls.
There does not seem to have been much other industrial activity bar the stone industry in Box. I can only remember the water mill, Brickells ice-cream site in the Ley, and Moon Aircraft at the Clift, where off-cuts of Perspex were dumped on the Tumps at Box Hill and burnt by us as torches to explore the quarries.