Alfred J Parker Ltd -

[Gnr527]

What a sight - this with thanks and acknowledgement to LERA:-

Report - Alfred J Parker Armoury Works - Birmingham - 2011 - UK Urban Exploration Forums


Archived Report - Alfred Parker Ltd Gunsmiths, Birmingham - June 2010 - UK Urban Exploration Forums

(copy and paste if the lnks don't work)


John

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Warning: This is a relatively older thread This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current.

[Peter Laidler]

Jeeeeeeees, it was like one of those Dickensian workhouses............

[bouletbill]

We s****** (or cry) at the state of bundles of rusted and corroded guns discovered in Nepal or some outdated part of the old Indian raj, yet here is the exact same situation in the centre of Britains Birmingham gun industry.I'm told there were stacks of lee-Enfield rifles in the basements, all ruined and sold for scrap. Demonised by modern urban 'culture' and suffocated by post imperial reactionary management . They were guardians of so much history and would always have had commercial potential, yet could not envisage any future. I think they just got old and tired of it all. What a waste. Perhaps there were too many skeletons in their cupboards !

Ok, so part of a word can be extracted out of context and made to sound like something else ... If I said 'we give a half-suppressed laugh', would that be acceptable ?

[Mk VII]

A lot of the Birmingham gun trade worked in similar or worse conditions, even in the 1960s.

[Paul S.]

One of the pictures had a magazine, 'Farmers' Weekly' I think, that was dated 1960. Sad to see so much left (history, artifacts, etc.) behind, neglected and destroyed.

[Alan de Enfield]

Whilst it is interesting to see the pictures (and thats why they do it) dont forget that these "Urban Explorers" are criminals - breaking and entering private property to get photographs of old industrial equipment.

How would you like your 'shed' broken into to get some pictures of your old Myford lathe ?

These "Urban Explorers" recently broke into our local Sugar Beet factory (it was a disused part of the factory) by climbing a 12 foot high chainlink and barbed wire fence, up the fire escapes, across an asbestos roof (marked use climbing boards only) and down a ventilator.
They were caught inside a 100 foot high silo which used to feed beet to the crushers - all the electrics were still live and one of the group was playing about with the roller / crusher feed switches on the main control board.
The Police would do nothing as no criminal damage had been done and it was just a case of 'Civil Trespass".

I bet it would have been a different story if one of them had fallen thru' the roof or been crushed in the beet rollers.
Hooligans - the lot of them !!!

[paulseamus]

Gosh

I would be like a little boy in a lolly shop, if I had access to that building.

So much neglected history.

Hopefully whem it was cleared out, the owners realised the value of the items.

Paul

[Thunderbox]

Gosh

I would be like a little boy in a lolly shop, if I had access to that building.

So much neglected history.

Hopefully whem it was cleared out, the owners realised the value of the items.

Paul

Well at least one bloke is making a fortune on eBay by selling AJP's stock of Enfield spares.

I've not heard if anyone in the UK gun trade got hold of any of the specialist gunsmithing tools or firearms components; I have a feeling it has all gone for scrap. I was hoping to track down a set of breeching-up tools or something, but haven't had a response to any the enquiries I've made.

[Badger]

Saved thread links and associated pics from The UK UE Urbex Urban Exploration Forums for posterity ...

Alfred J Parker Armoury Works - Birmingham - 2011 - UK Urban Exploration Forums

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Alfred Parker Ltd Gunsmiths, Birmingham - June 2010 - UK Urban Exploration Forums

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Regards,
Doug

[Mk VII]

I visited the front office in the premises some years ago, in connection with picking up a No.7 rifle which I had bought. It was like stepping back in time into the 1950s, nothing had changed - except the prices.
AJP was another example of a British business which failed to move with the times. Although Ma Parker was an engineer, she wasn't a shooter, and so she failed to perceive that the times had changed and shooting had changed, and that products which were good enough for the market twenty years before were not good enough now.