On the subject of Butterley locos, I was fishing round the other day and found a Planet builders plate in my collection from an ex Butterley Co loco. A little known fact is that Butterley Co bought the loco builder F.C.Hibberd in the early 60s and that Butterley can infact claim to be a locomotive builder having built several locomotives for itself during the 1800s and latterly by building FC Hibberd locomotives. It is therefore not surprising that Butterley employed 6 FCH locos in its works around the Ripley and Codnor Park sites and I can vaguely remember seeing No 1 out of use in about 1978. My plate comes from No3 and is pictured below. These plates are huge and quite attractive.
🔗Butterley-Ironworks-Smelt-Mill-User-Album-Image-46845[linkphoto]Butterley-Ironworks-Smelt-Mill-User-Album-Image-46845[/linkphoto][/link]

The 6 locos were-
No1 Planet type 4wheel diesel mechanical works no 3583 of 1952, used at Codnor park and Butterley from 1954 and known to be on site at Butterley in 1979.

No2 Planet type 4wheel diesel mechanical works no 3601 of 1953, new to Codnor Park, used at Codnor park and Butterley and known to be on site at Butterley in 1979.

No3 named "Planet" Planet type 4wheel diesel mechanical works no 3678 of 1953, used at Codnor park and Butterley, on site in 1970 but gone by 1979.

3 other 2ft gauge FCH locos were employed at Butterleys Waingroves Brickworks. All were 4wheel diesel mechanicals.

Below is a potted history of F C Hibberd from Wiki-
F. C. Hibberd & Co Ltd was a British locomotive-building company founded in 1927 to build industrial petrol and diesel locomotives. In 1932 the company acquired the goodwill of James and Frederick Howard Ltd. and the company moved to Park Royal, London, and began manufacturing locomotives there.

Many of Hibberd's locomotives were small machines with final drive by roller chain but it also built some larger ones with side-rod drive. The latter bore a strong resemblance to Hudswell Clarke products.

Hibberd used the name Planet for their locomotives but this should not be confused with the much earlier Planet steam locomotive.

From 1956 Thomas Hill (Rotherham) Ltd, THR, sold Hibberd locomotives to non-Hibberd customers on an informal commission basis until 1960. The relationship ended because Hibberd were becoming worried that THR would sell their own locomotives to customers in preference to the Hibberd product.

The company was acquired by Butterley Engineering in the early 1960s and in 1964 production was moved to Ripley, Derbyshire. The last locomotive built to a Hibberd design was delivered in 1968.

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During the early years of Hibberds they bought ex WW1 Simplexs, overhailed them, and sold them as new Planet locos!

there must be some photos out there of butterley loco,s in use . there are certainly some of the stanton works ones around .

I have pictures of some Butterley built steam locos which I will upload to the Archive album, namely works numbers B1C, B5C and B11C. I also have a photo of the diesel Teucer that I am trying to dig out.

EDIT in fact here they are-
🔗Butterley-Ironworks-Smelt-Mill-Archive-Album-Image-46868[linkphoto]Butterley-Ironworks-Smelt-Mill-Archive-Album-Image-46868[/linkphoto][/link]
🔗Butterley-Ironworks-Smelt-Mill-Archive-Album-Image-46869[linkphoto]Butterley-Ironworks-Smelt-Mill-Archive-Album-Image-46869[/linkphoto][/link]
🔗Butterley-Ironworks-Smelt-Mill-Archive-Album-Image-46870[linkphoto]Butterley-Ironworks-Smelt-Mill-Archive-Album-Image-46870[/linkphoto][/link]

Regs ICLOK

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amazing , thanks

Thought I would add a post to provide some of the background to the site changes in the mid-eighties.

Not sure of the exact date, but in the early eighties there was a merger of Butterley with Adamsons of Telford (based at the similarly old Horsehay works). This resulted in cranes being manufactured as either AB Cranes or Adamson Butterley and also resulted in the famous sign on Butterley Hill being preceded with the word "Adamson". Some of the staff at Ripley were not keen on the partial loss of the Butterley name.

In around 1985, the decision was made to close the Telford works and move operations to Ripley. This resulted in much of the configuration of the works that survived to 2009. Main changes were:
* Extension to the drawing office and expansion of CAD facilities to accomodate the extra design staff.
* Replacement of cranes in the main part of No.9 shop to use three shortened 30T cranes from Telford
* No.9 shop extension built as assembly shop. This used shortened 40T and 10t cranes from Telford, which used to have the 40T cranes as the low level cranes and the 10t as the high level one, unlike at Ripley
* Many of the cranes at this time were fitted with radio control, however, the cranes in No.8 shop were still manually controlled as they were DC powered
* No.11 shop constructed as new machine shop with CNC lathes and the big Asquith borers beds
* Fitting shop moved to be part of the old machine shop
* One range of foundry buildings had to be demolished to make way for No.9 and No.11 shops

Apparently, on the day that the closure was announced, a team removed the "Adamson" letters from the side a No.8 shop - a clear sign of the popularity of the change in Ripley.

In 1986 the foundry was closed with the demolition of the building nearest the furnace bank and the other buildings were shortened at the southern end.

Crown Windley took over the foundry offices to make/sell precision measurement tables. This included the addition of a Snow grinder in the old machine shop to grind granite surface tables - quite a contrast to the metal machining around it!

At this time Butterley was part of the Norcros group which then had a large engineering focus, but today focuses on domestic tiles and showers! During this period it was discovered that the Ripley site itself had been sold off and that the companies then paid rent for use of the site.

Very interesting that... I am trying to dig out of my own stuff the photos I took in the late 70s of the site... sadly buried in amongst 1000s of rail pics in the loft!!! ::)

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Hi Julian your piece is really interesting-its great to add to the forum,a great archive is building up........ 😉

Iclok keep scouring your loft for your photos,im very curious and excited to see them!! 😉
My dad was saying he could kick himself for not taking his camera on the bi-centenary open day,he would have captured alot no doubt.Ah well,never mind ::)

ICLOK,
Please try and find what you can in the loft. I'm going to try and blow up the aerial view photo and label it with whats what. Had a walk past today and took some more pics - very depressing. Walked around new houses trying to work out what stood where - but it's very difficult. Will upload new pics hopefully tomorrow

Ian try your Vista Snipping tool re the aerial photo... 😉

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Good Evening All - I've added some articles from the Norcros Magazine 'Profile' that relate to the Foundry and the No 9 Shop Extension and New No 11 Shop to the archive album. I've also added up an enlarged aerial view 😉

Excellent additions Ian. :thumbsup:
It was interesting to see how some of my colleagues used to look back then.::)

I can't add anything to your labels on the aerial photo, you seem to have got it spot on.

Has anyone else got any similar gems lurking in their attics?? :surrender:

Stop Press :lol: Thursday 11th of February at 8pm at Marehay Miners Welfare is a DVD evening with Mike Allen who's made several films relating to Butterley. There are 2 on show - 'Butterley - End of an Era' and 'Demolition of Butterley'

On the subject of Butterley locos, I was fishing round the other day and found a Planet builders plate in my collection from an ex Butterley Co loco. A little known fact is that Butterley Co bought the loco builder F.C.Hibberd in the early 60s and that Butterley can infact claim to be a locomotive builder having built several locomotives for itself during the 1800s and latterly by building FC Hibberd locomotives. It is therefore not surprising that Butterley employed 6 FCH locos in its works around the Ripley and Codnor Park sites and I can vaguely remember seeing No 1 out of use in about 1978. My plate comes from No3 and is pictured below. These plates are huge and quite attractive.
🔗Butterley-Ironworks-Smelt-Mill-User-Album-Image-46845[linkphoto]Butterley-Ironworks-Smelt-Mill-User-Album-Image-46845[/linkphoto][/link]

The 6 locos were-
No1 Planet type 4wheel diesel mechanical works no 3583 of 1952, used at Codnor park and Butterley from 1954 and known to be on site at Butterley in 1979.

No2 Planet type 4wheel diesel mechanical works no 3601 of 1953, new to Codnor Park, used at Codnor park and Butterley and known to be on site at Butterley in 1979.

No3 named "Planet" Planet type 4wheel diesel mechanical works no 3678 of 1953, used at Codnor park and Butterley, on site in 1970 but gone by 1979.

3 other 2ft gauge FCH locos were employed at Butterleys Waingroves Brickworks. All were 4wheel diesel mechanicals.

Below is a potted history of F C Hibberd from Wiki-
F. C. Hibberd & Co Ltd was a British locomotive-building company founded in 1927 to build industrial petrol and diesel locomotives. In 1932 the company acquired the goodwill of James and Frederick Howard Ltd. and the company moved to Park Royal, London, and began manufacturing locomotives there.

Many of Hibberd's locomotives were small machines with final drive by roller chain but it also built some larger ones with side-rod drive. The latter bore a strong resemblance to Hudswell Clarke products.

Hibberd used the name Planet for their locomotives but this should not be confused with the much earlier Planet steam locomotive.

From 1956 Thomas Hill (Rotherham) Ltd, THR, sold Hibberd locomotives to non-Hibberd customers on an informal commission basis until 1960. The relationship ended because Hibberd were becoming worried that THR would sell their own locomotives to customers in preference to the Hibberd product.

The company was acquired by Butterley Engineering in the early 1960s and in 1964 production was moved to Ripley, Derbyshire. The last locomotive built to a Hibberd design was delivered in 1968.

FCH - interesting - probably the most derivative of the pre war i/c loco builder. Their pre war locos were either copies of Howard locos, Kent Construction or O&K.

I believe Alan Keef Ltd bought the the name back in the 1980s. They also got the surviviving narrow gauge drawings which included a few Howard ones.

End of digression.

A lot of people are now remembering what was built at Butterley - plenty of large, impressive and quite recent structures but not just these. While searching for something else I discovered that the Butterly company built the first all steel railway mineral wagon - which eventually lead to 300,000 16t steel wagons being used on British Railways. We don't miss things until their gone - or don't appreciate them while they are there!

Wow...its all gone quiet on here hasnt it?? Drove past the site today and stopped,had a look in...there wasnt much activity going on..athough i did notice cawarden had got one of their machines up the top over the coach road on the old sidings doing something........?

i had a look in the sidings earlier , the burned out railcar coach apeared to have been reduced to its chassis . perhaps the cawarden metal chopper was trying something more delicate

Hmmm...maybe so.Where has that huge spoil heap come from on there anyway?? Surely its not all from excavating the top area for the houses?

I see the offices my grandad built have gone.... 😞

i think theres some work going on at the side of the police headquarters . perhaps the sidings are a general temporary dumping ground .