Tuesday 5 January 2010

Redpath Brown

We have been sent a number of wonderful pictures of the Redpath Brown works in Greenwich.


This factory - later known as the Riverside Steel Works - stood in Riverway, roughly between the sites of the Pilot and John Harrison Way.



The pictures have no captions and any information would be gratefully received.



Lots more to come






1 comment:

P James Menter said...

In the 1960s I worked as a structural engineer for Redpath Brown Ltd (it later became Redpath Dorman Long Ltd (RDL) and then part of British Steel), and was trained at the Riverside Works. The top picture is of a universal beam being cut to length. The white milky liquid aids cutting and cools the blade. In the middle photograph flange plates are being hot riveted onto a steel column. RDL had invested heavily in hydraulic riveting hammers slung from overhead tracks - the investment was poorly made as rivets were quickly replaced by high strength friction bolts and welding. The bottom picture is the smithy shop for making small fitments. RDL had several factories with a total output of 100,000 tons of structural steelworks a year. At the time it was the largest supplier of structural steelworks in the UK.