Hunmanby Industrial Estate, close to Hunmanby Railway Station, creating employment for over 350 people

 

The Introduction below, is from the Hunmanby Local History Group booklet about Hunmanby dated 1st January 1976

Industries:

Unlike many villages, Hunmanby possessed a number of industries, apart from its basic agriculture and attendant trades-people from the early 1800's. A brickworks in Northgate (owned at one period by a family named Taylor) was the first. The bricks were dried naturally, that is stacked in the open for one year. Following this were three ropeworks, the last (Witty's) closing down in 1920. Within this period Hunmanby Brewery existed, adding its small staff to the workforce of the village.

Frederick William Parker - Engineer and Brick Maker Rosedale Works, Hunmanby

With thanks to research from Brian Waining and Hunmanby Local History Group

To trace the origins of the current Industrial Estate which employs around 350 people, the village 'diversified' thanks to Frederick William Parker in the later half on the 19th Century.

 

Frederick William Parker was born at Graffitoe Farm. This is situated on the road to Reighton over looking Filey Bay. He was born in 1861. As a young man he helped on the family farm. However, Frederick was not cut out to b e a farmer, his father realising his son would never make a farmer brought Frederick a Fowler's of Leeds steam traction engine and threshing set for a 21st birthday present. This enable Frederick to set himself up as a steam contractor. Soon Frederick had the machinery up and running. By placing a traction engine at either end of the field, a large double ended plough with 5 blades connected with steel cables was propelled up or down moving the engines a few yards on and another five furrows could be worked. Soon he had most local farmers as customers.

After a while he required 2 engines, 2 threshing machines, ploughing equipment etc. Graffitoe Farm was by now not big enough for all his engines and other farm equipment. Frederick now needed his own building to store and service his engines. He bought part of a field from the brick maker Messrs. Whittakers alongside Hunmanby railway station. Needing bricks to build has own workshop, he opened his own birckworks now on his own land. (Frederick did not see the point of buying bricks when you could make your own!) 

Frederick noticed that the London Brick Company dried their bricks in kilns. This was a much quicker process than the old method of drying the bricks naturally, outside, in the open air as used at Hunmanby by both Frederick and Whittakers. A process which could take up to two years. Frederick visited a number of kilns, and returning back to Hunmanby built his own kilns to dry his bricks. This quadrupled the output of bricks. A few years later, just before the Second World War, Whittaker's in order to compete, also build drying kilns. But their brickyard never attained full production owing to the war breaking out, which brought about its closure, never to re-open. After the Second World War, the site of Whittakers was re-opened as a Concrete Products factory. This closed in the late 1960's 

Frederick married about this time and once his workshop was built (with Whittaker's and his own bricks) he started to build 'Rosedale House'  (again most of his own bricks and some of Whittaker's bricks) This house still stands just up the road from the Railway Station

The business grew  employing more staff in brick making, Frederick sold thousands of bricks to local builders in  the area. The traction engines which could tow wagon's could deliver bricks directly onto the building sites. His bill-heads now claimed - 'FW Parker Engineer and Brick Maker' 

Frederick required two more Fowler's of Leeds steam engines, one was used in the brickworks to drive the paddles in a large drum which mixed clay. The other steam engine was installed into a purpose built engine shed in the engineering workshops to power lathes, steam powered hammer, etc. Also in the workshop a forge. Threshing machines and wagons for road use were built chiefly of wood, so a joiners shop was added.

The end of World War One saw a large increase in petrol driven motor cars and motor lorries. Frederick at his engineering works at Hunmanby adapted its workshop and also added a petrol pump so he could undertake the servicing of motor. 

Frederick has being a shrewd business man, purchased a plot of land behind the Crescent and opened the first motor garage in the area - Central Garage. He had connections with all leading car makers and undertook every kind of motor repairs, engine or bodywork. 

SUBMARINE G3

A submarine was observed adrift about 8 miles east of Scarborough in early December 1921 well within sight of North Bay. It was the former first world war British Naval Submarine G3, which had been taken out of commission, and was being towed to the breakers yard on the Tees. It was assumed that the submarine had broken its tether, which would explain why she was adrift. a strong easterly gale prevailed, which moderated slightly, and a plan was made to salve the vessel in the late afternoon when the tide permitted, using the trawler Renaissance. This plan appeared to be problematic and it appeared likely that the submarine would have been left to drift onto the rocky coast to the north of Scarborough. No crew were believed to be on board. The submarine at some point after 9th December broke free from the shore and drifted back out to sea. The 187 foot long 693 ton goliath, then drifted south missing the headlands at Scarborough South Bay and Filey Brigg. It eventually ran aground under Buckton cliff, going in bow first. 

A local man Jack Webster brought the salvage rights to the vessel and the wreck was taken apart for scrap. Mr Webster knowing that the submarine contained two heavy duty electric generators/motors for its underwater propulsion. He approached Frederick was a proposition in buying the 2 generators. 

Frederick realised that these 2 generators would provide electricity for his workshop, and his house at Hunmanby. Being a businessman, he agreed to buy on one condition, that the 2 generators where brought up to the cliff top where his traction engine and lorry could transport them to his works. The deal was done! The generators were pulled up the vertical 350 foot cliff by Jack Webster and his three teenaged sons with the aid of a gin-wheel and ropes.

In 1923 Hunmanby had no electricity or gas at all. (apart from the privately owned acetylene gas plants) mains electric light was unknown. with mains electricity not coming to the village of Hunmanby until 1933.

Ross Fenby, Frederick's main electrician assembled one of the generators (the other one to be used for spares) and wired up the buildings. Frederick had the first truly electric lighted buildings in the area. This system was a 24 volt. DC current and worked excellently until the successors of Messrs. Parkers, who lived in the two houses changed over to 240 volt mains supply in 1953.

With the engineering works at Hunmanby and Filey, Frederick was by the 1930's employing up to 100 local workmen.

Frederick William Parker died on 1st August 1934, aged 73. He is buried in Gods Acre Cemetery, Hunmanby.

If you have more information or are interested in History, this is the link to Hunmanby Local History Group Facebook page

Hunmanby.com a website built to record local history, over two decades ago, has a more direct link to this period, when personal recollections were still available, but the wealth of research material available on the internet, was in its infancy.

This is the hunmanby.com link to Frederick William Parker 

The details below, are from the Hunmanby Local History Group booklet about Hunmanby dated 1st January 1976

Shortly after the death of F.W. Parker, the firm changed hands and became known as Hunmanby Engineering Works. The brickyard was now closed down. Hunmanby Engineering operated until the 1960's when it was sold again. (In 1976) The site housed Lemke's Engineering Works, Beck Engineering and Hunmanby Precision Engineering Ltd. At this time, the main agricultural engineers were J Milner and Son, Harvester Works, Northgate. Hunmanby Steel Structure had entered the steel-framed construction arena, operating from premises in Mowthorpe's yard, Stonegate. The old Concrete Products site had just re-opened ion 1975 as a Garden Centre. From just outside the village limits, coupled with a large garage in Hungate Lane, a coach hire firm  (Primrose Valley Motors Ltd) was being run by Messrs. Elley & Webster. The concluding paragraph stated that 'although Hunmanby (is) primarily an agricultural community, (it) has diversified over the past 200 years and despite the present drift from the land is far removed from becoming a dying village like so many of its neighbours.

The new industrial estate

The background to the more modern industrial estate:

The population of Hunmanby in 1901 was 1,289 people, a rise of around third in 90 years.  (1811 population 903) Hunmanby Parish is more than the village, it stretches along Bartindale Road, Burton Fleming and Wold Newton Road to the East Riding Boundary, likewise Cans Dale on the road to Fordon is the boundary with the county it once was part of. On the Malton Road, the boundary is where the Yorkshire Wolds Way cross by Stockendale Farm (Happy Hens) and Graffitoe Farm on the Reighton Road. To the West the Parish Boundary runs close to the A165 Coast Road, then to the old 'Butlin's Bridge' over Filey Road

Thanks below to H.C. Mowthorpe's article  'Buildings in Hunmanby' from Hunmanby booklet printed in 1976 by Hunmanby Local History Group. 

'The early 1900's saw little new building, Cliff Terrace in Stonegate being one notable exception. From 1920 up to the Second World War, private building intensified, with Muston Lane, Bridlington Street and Lower Stonegate becoming rapidly in-filled. Bungalows made their first appearance, and Hunmanby Gap and Primrose Valley developed as holiday resorts.Hunmanby built its first two large council estates (Bridlington Rural District Council) in Stonegate, Hungate and Simpson Avenue in 1938. After the second world war, the third council estate in Mitford Road and Northgate was completed in 1948. Apart from certain licensed exceptions private building did not commence until 1952, when again much in-filling took place. The late 1950's saw the first private estate, which was Wrangham Drive. This was followed during the 1960's-70's by High Croft, Lennox Close, Manor Gardens and finally Woodland Falls.' 

Hungate Court, a Sheltered Housing Complex, opened in 1973, just prior to the re-organisation of Local Government and Hunmanby moving from the East Riding to North Yorkshire. By the early 1970's the village population had grown to over 2,000. The late 1970's and 1980's saw more bungalow's as the village became a popular retirement location, due to Hunmanby being a self contained village with a comprehensive range of local facilities.

Few now remember our new Industrial Estate was developed by Hunmanby Parish Council on land that it owned. (Which according to the Council records would appear to have not been as straight forward as it seams as even this  involved land transfers to enable the current site to be developed.)  

Hunmanby Parish Council were pioneers, wanting to develop new local jobs, so the village had work for families, as well as being a popular retirement location. Having young families living in the village would help support the village school. The Industrial Estate was a way to promote a mixed economy with the decline in agricultural work. Records for 1975 show the village still had 25 farmers, down from 35 in 1892.  

The village had seen a good amount of retirement properties, predominantly bungalows, built from the late 1960's

For a Parish Council to take the lead on an 'economic development'  was not normal, especially in the 1980's. Hunmanby Parish Council, their clerk and councillors challenged local government and found a way to develop this land so that there would be work for the village population.

The new industrial estate complimented the old area developed by Frederick William Parker in the 19th Century, building on Hunmanby's engineering developments of the previous 100 years.

The new Industrial Estate provides employment for around 350 people