Happy Birthday Workshop 4 years. We can’t even believe it.
We didn’t think we would pass 2 years.
What a lovely story I learnt yesterday (31st
March 2014). This old man around 11am knocks at the door and he said “I built
this place. My name is Thomas William Eaton TWE” pointing at the door. He asked
me to come in and we spent a good hour telling me how he built the place brick
by brick and bolt by bolt.
He was working in the lace market in a building on the
second floor doing all sorts of engineering but the landlord there didn’t not
let him do welding so he was going secretly in the night throwing water on the
wooden floors so they do not catch fire and was doing welding. It was hard work
and they could not afford the rent he said so they decided all the family to
get their own unit. They all scraped the bottom of the
barrel and gathered £12K
and bought the Unit at 247 Noel Str. It was just one ground floor unit and only
3 offices and a canteen. The rest was a yard and a garden. Hard to imagine it
now.
His wife was running the canteen and serving food to the workers
as well as doing the accounts. She was also washing the workers clothes and
hanging them in the garden. Also his two sons were working there.
They all slowly slowly started building the building. Brick
by brick, nut by nut. 25000 bricks he told me.
He told me “We were working, paying the wages, buying brinks
then working, buying steel and kept on doing that”. He remembered every single bolt
and every single joint that was constructed.
They didn’t not have tools at the beginning (hmmmm sounds
like us) but work was coming and they started buying machines. They were making
everything engineering using metal. They made almost all the lace making
machines in the Notts area as well as sawing machines, industrial alarms, and
much more.” If you ask around” he said “you will find all out all out fabric
making machines”.
They were so in demand that started exporting lace machine
to New Zealand and Australia.
“We built this staircase “ he said “we installed in the building
3phase and each working station with compressed air, here was my workbench. Oh
I used to do welding on those tables.” He continued.
I said on this same table I do electronics , he smiled with satisfaction. “Oh
and at the back there we had metal folding machines” . “We have 2 independent
wood makers here come and see their new machine” I said. He followed me and
smiled again.
5 years ago they all retired and eventually they closed the
unit and sold it. And here we are out of necessity not being able to find a decent
affordable space to do artwork projects, we got this unit on a temporary basis.
The unit is too big just for us so we decided to share it with others, so The
Workshop – Nottingham was born.
“My name is Thomas William Eaton what is yours?” Adam I said
“good luck Adam oh here are my initials at the door TWE” pointing at the door.
The Workshop – Established April 2010.
The Workshop is a non profit unfunded self sustained organisation
and from day one trying to restart and reinvent local micro production,
engineering and fabrication using design, engineering, technology and business
skills and knowledge. The Workshop supports artists and students, hosted many
events and currently houses 7 independent businesses. The Workshop already supports
and wants to grow supporting local fabrication to high street retail.
The wood makers just bought 2 machines, all the businesses
in The Workshop just about started going. We want to do much more one of them
is to buy machines to be used by other local makers.
The Workshop needs to grow and possibly find new premises
since the current ones are sold and most likely we cannot stay. We are looking
for investors that would like to support this social entrepreneurial enterprise
venture.
We are so happy we met TWE. A real inspiration to keep The
Workshop going. I own it to him to make it work.
Adam Spinos
Just some images of The Workshop and of the things that happened
and keep happening.....
