Exploring the Shipping Building in Hayes
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The Dark Side Of The Moon. Stereo sound. Television. CAT scanners. 3D audio. They were all made in Hayes.
To music-lovers of the 1960s and 1970s, Hayes was the centre of the record-making universe. A place the world listened to. This was where vinyl was made. It was here a century ago that an artist arrived with a painting of a dog listening to a gramophone - a painting that would go on to become, for His Master’s Voice, one of the most recognisable trademarks of all time. LPs and singles by Frank Sinatra, The Beatles, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Queen and other EMI artists were mastered, pressed, packed and dispatched from here until well into the 1980s. Printed on the back of them all, the legend, ‘Hayes – Middlesex – England’ became a familiar sight the world over.
A few photos of a recent project at The Old Vinyl Factory that we completed recently for Cathedral Group Plc. The Metropolis Sofa by Matthew Hilton covered in a bright red Kvadrat fabric was commissioned for their entrance hall, the sofa and the wall vinyl certainly make quite a bold statement, and we like it a lot!
About The Old Vinyl Factory
The £250 million regeneration of The Old Vinyl Factory is creating a place where business, leisure and living can exist in harmony all mutually flourishing. The Old Vinyl Factory is respectful of its rich musical heritage, but also focused on the future – ready for the arrival of Crossrail with its faster links into London and at the forefront of new ways of working. Set in 180,000 sq ft of landscaped public space, the site creates a whole new quarter for Hayes. The original art deco factory buildings designed by Wallis, Gilbert & Partners were the height of 1930s innovation. Thousands of people worked here for EMI, pressing and packaging vinyl records and making everything from radio sets to bicycles. Today, these renovated white buildings offer inspiring multi-purpose workspaces full of atmosphere and history. The Shipping Building is already home to technology firms Sonos and Host and houses an incredible shared hub for makers, inventors and entrepreneurs called
The Central Research Laboratory (CRL). Our new buildings are innovative too; taking their lead from the past they are sympathetic to the materials and style of the original buildings but also unmistakably modern and intelligent in their use of light and space. We’re providing hundreds of desirable and much needed new homes alongside a range of commercial units, a multi-storey car park and green public areas enabling a relaxed, pedestrian environment. Making the site complete is a selection of retail, leisure and family-friendly entertainment spaces bringing leisure and dining venues to the community who live and work here and to the rest of West London.
