A BRIEF HISTORY OF GRANWOOD

Moore's Jewellers, Derby. Flooded with 1.5m water in 1932 - undamaged.

The Granwood Composition Wood Block was the result of several years’ experimentation by a local builder, Mr L. P. Evans. His objective was to produce a flooring system which possessed the warmth and resilient properties of wooden floors without having the major disadvantages associated with wood, which are expansion and contraction, unequal wear plus the splitting and splintering which often come with age. The resultant product was a combination of sawdust, cement and fillers which were heavily compressed into a block shape with the desired density which was then totally saturated in linseed oil. Next, the Granwood Blocks were stacked to allow them to mature and it was found that once this had happened, the product was almost entirely free from expansion and contraction, it was fire and damp resistant, didn’t allow dry rot to form, was proof against vermin and insect attack, as well as being warm, resilient and extremely durable.

Mr Evans then set about promoting and selling this totally new and unique product, with the first Traditional Granwood floors being installed in approximately 1912 using Granwood Flooring Blocks which were approximately 22.86cm x 7.62cm x 2.5cm thick. During 1913 an approach was made to the county architect of Derbyshire at that time, Mr G. A. Widdows, FRIBA, and he agreed to lay a Granwood floor into one of his schools at Belper as an experiment. This floor was successfully installed towards the end of 1913.

The intervention of the first world war stopped further progress being made but, after the war, Mr Widdows, who was very impressed with the way the “experimental” Granwood floor at the Belper school had stood up to five years of wear and tear, immediately initiated a considerable floor renewal programme throughout Derbyshire when worn, knotty and splintering wood block floors in the county’s schools were replaced with new Traditional Granwood flooring. The worn out wood block flooring was removed and the new Granwood Flooring Blocks, which were by this time being made in tiles 157.2 x 52.4 x 5.88mm thick, were installed in a 1:3 cement and sand mortar bed 13mm thick. Following this acceleration of orders, the Granwood Flooring Company Limited was formed in 1921.

Sales Agents were appointed in London and the UK’s main provincial cities, following which the company name and product soon became very well known in principal architects’ offices throughout the country. Granwood’s use as a cost effective and more stable alternative to wood block flooring, particularly when used in association with under floor heating systems, became widespread, particularly within educational establishments.

Granwood Boardroom - "Jam Factory" at West Street.

This rapidly increasing demand for Granwood Flooring Blocks necessitated a move to larger and more suitable premises. This problem was solved by the purchase of a disused jam factory in West Street, Riddings which is still used as part of our factory complex today by our subsidiary, Granwax Products Limited.

A long period of steady expansion followed with the name “Granwood” becoming more and more recognised as a hallmark of quality flooring throughout the British Isles. The list of contracts that the company had successfully completed was one of which they could be justifiably proud. As each year passed, the list of schools, hospitals, churches, public buildings, factories and houses within which Granwood flooring was in daily use grew extensively and there were very few towns or villages which could not boast having a Granwood floor within one of their buildings!

The advent of the Second World War in 1939 dealt a paralysing blow to the company’s progress. Building work all over the country was either curtailed or cancelled, with many of the Granwood staff volunteering for the armed forces and our work force being depleted further by redeployment to essential war work, plus raw materials were in very short supply. However, our remaining factory and installation teams were employed to capacity during the period of hostilities carrying out flooring work to satisfy government contracts and to provide flooring within buildings of national importance.

In 1944 it became evident that further factory capacity would be required after the war and so 11 hectares of land adjacent to the existing factory but on the opposite side of Greenhill Lane, Riddings were purchased and a new purpose built factory designed and planned.

1951 - Granwood products chosen for display at The Festival of Britain.

Around this time, the founding directors decided to retire and so Granwood Flooring Company Limited was purchased by British Steel Constructions (Birmingham) Limited, becoming one of a group of nine companies. Mr Arthur Pass, Granwood's General Manager at the time of the takeover, was appointed Managing Director. Immediately after the war, the sales and contracting departments were expanded, the planned new, purpose-built factory constructed and, once again, the company began to make steady progress.

In 1955, a Canadian company was formed in Toronto with branches in five other main Canadian cities. This was the first real serious endeavour to export Granwood Flooring Blocks around the world and it met with immediate success. There quickly followed an arrangement with an American company to handle Granwood Flooring Blocks and this too proved to be a successful venture. America rapidly became the company’s largest overseas market and remains so to the present day. The Canadian company was reorganised during the 60’s, after which it operated as three separate companies in Edmonton, Montreal and Ontario.

Granwood - tough enogh for a Courtaulds factory floor!.

In the late fifties, the GPO had identified Granwood as the ideal flooring system for telephone exchanges where they required a dust free floor which would allow them to move around heavy equipment using fork lifts and yet still have the capacity to be installed to very fine tolerances of level and flatness. This resulted in Granwood floors being installed in all the major telephone exchanges throughout the UK during the next twenty years or so, a number of which were the size of several football pitches, with many of these floors still in use today.

1962 saw Granwood Flooring Company Limited merge with another local concern, Stonewood Flooring Company Limited, and the joint company was renamed Granwood-Stonewood Limited. Also in 1962, a further parcel of land adjacent to the new factory was purchased for future development.

The new combined company placed additional emphasis on expanding its export business and as a result an agency agreement was signed with a French flooring contractor in 1963, with their first large contract, a convent school on the outskirts of Paris, being completed during 1964. Since then, Granwood have expanded their export markets to include all 7 continents of the world and today around a third of the factory’s production is exported every year.