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ABOUT OUR NEW AUTO-RACING STUDIO
Our studio is located in the far west of Cornwall and only 15 miles from Lands End, our exact location is shown by the blue marker on the map below.
This part of west Cornwall is very famous for its natural picturesque rugged scenery and long golden sandy beaches.
We are also very lucky to have a very good quality of natural light, which has made the local area world renowned for artists, sculptors and silver smiths in the nearby fishing village of St Ives, this pretty village is also home to the famous Tate gallery and many award winning local seafood restaurants.
If you wish to visit our studio to possibly collect your finished model we can provide information on very good quality local accommodation and places of interest to visit and dine during your stay.
Please note however we are a good 5 hour drive from London and 7 hours from Dover.
There are regular flights into our nearest airport some 35 minute drive away from the studio at Newquay. These flights are from the main London city airport and other major U.K. and some international airports, these include Germany, Switzerland, France, Ireland, Manchester, Edinburgh and Gatwick etc. a link is shown below to there official website.
We also have a very good high speed train service from London's Paddington, Manchesters Picadilly and Birmingham's New Street train station's. The Penzance main rail line passes some 700 yards from our studio across one of Brunel's viaducts and most mainline trains stop at Hayle's own little station which is less than a 5 minute walk from our studio.
We are situated in 18 & 19 Dowren House, this stylish modern well designed building was opened in 2004 by HRH Prince Charles. To learn more about the re-development of the old foundry site in Hayle please have a look at the Harvey's Foundry Trust's website a link is shown on the left.
Our building is situated on the site of the old Harvey's casting foundry. This was one of the most important casting foundry's in Cornwall which closed in 1903. We are very proud to be bringing back the use of casting to this former foundry even if it is on a slightly smaller scale, by the casting local Cornish pewter that we use in the manufacture of our models to this historic foundry site after more than 100 years.
Below are some brief extracts from a history of Hayle as you can see the area has given birth to some of the most important industrial innovations in our time.
"...By the time of the Doomsday Survey (c.1086), most of the area we now know as Hayle fell within the manor of Conarditon, or Conerton, a name existing today in the form of Connor Downs, a nearby village. This was under the rule of Brictric, a Saxon nobleman, passing to the Arundel famiy in the thirteenth century and to the Hawkins of Trewithen in the nineteenth century."
"...Richard Trevithick, working at the foundry amongst engineers William West (a Cornishman and another Harvey son-in-law), Arthur Woolf and others, was to perfect inventions numerous and wide-ranging : the renowned "Cornish" Boiler and Engine; the screw propeller for ships; in 1804 the world's first railway locomotive and arguably, the world's first motor car. For following the successful development of high-pressure engines, a high pressure steam vehicle, cast at Hayle, was given its first road trial in Camborne in 1801 and in 1802 was driven on the road in London, successfully for some five or so miles."
"At the other end of the estuary the development of copper-smelting had
brought to the town an equal and much earlier measure of international
achievement. Commenced in 1756, a partnership commonly known as the
"Cornish Copper Company" was to become the only large scale copper-
smelting business in Cornwall and later its prestigious iron foundry was to
manufacture some of the largest Cornish beam Engines. The company's
contracts extended not only throughout the breadth of this country but as far
afield as Spain, Jamaica, Australia and even, in 1858 to Odessa in Southern
Russia.
Amongst its achievements can be listed the building of the "Cornubia", the
first working locomotive to be designed and built in Cornwall, made
especially for the newly completed Hayle railway line in 1838; the
manufacture of the chain links for the Hungerford Bridge of 1845; half of
the chain links for Brunel's Royal Albert Bridge across the Tamar at Saltash
(this, following a glowing report from Brunel himself after his visit to the
premises in 1840) and perhaps most famously the links for the Clifton
Suspension Bridge, completed in 1864 "
"...Probably the largest single industry in Hayle, a munitions works of the National Explosives Company at Upton Towans, employing some 1,500 during the 1914 war, was not established until 1888 and despite some tragic and spectacular accidents was not to have a lasting influence on the town. Of no local origin and sited at the town's edge, it has disappeared into the memory of but a few since it closed in 1919, though that area of Upton Towans is still known locally as "Dynamite". However, whatever relics remain on the duneland site are now carefully preserved under the aegis of Cornwall Wildlife Trust."
"...Hayle flourished during the nineteenth century, after years of industrial expansion which then declined with the rest of the country when the recession set in.
Today Hayle has a very different character the twentieth century brought the tourist and a shift of emphasis to its three miles of golden sands and surrounding picturesque countryside, although the town has escaped the fate of becoming a characterless tourist trap."
Shown here are some of the industrial castings and amazing cylinders for steam engines and tin and copper mining water pumps that were cast on the site of our studio.
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