St. Andrew's Road: Laboratories Mess Room, Convenience to Boiler House and F A Plant

The plans provide for the erection of a single storey brick building with a slate roof to house a Mess Room for 55 men. A convenience includes 4 amle toilets and 5 urinals. Thees new buildings provide some indication of the importance of the works to the war effort and the need to provide more facilities on site for the growing labour force.Read Hollidays expanded production to meet wartime needs, gradually taking over most of the available land in and around St Andrew's Road. The company began on a site near the gasworks, where dyestuffs were extracted from waste coal tar products. With the outbreak of war in 1914,REad Hollidays converted the plant to the production of chemicals for explosives. During the Great War, in order to control supplies, British Dyes was established. This was later to become ICI. As the demand grew, all the available land on St Andrrew's Road was occupied by Hollidays or other manufacturers undertaking to supply the War Office. A new site was found further along Leeds Road, which allowed for long-term expansion, a site still occupied by chemical plant.