Industrial Arlingtonia

The Bottle Factory’s narrow entrance

Have you ever wondered why the streets of our neighbourhood are so wide? We’ve received one plausible explanation from a resident of the Bottle Factory (on Mary Street, beside the Hanbury Arms).

It seems there was a real bottle factory on this site, possibly even before the surrounding houses were built. When the building was converted into four houses in the late 1980s, the developers found enough broken glass to fill four skips. The dwellings that surround it on Mary Street, Linton Street and St Paul Street may have been built to house the factory workers.

There were other industrial units in the Arlington Square area when the houses were built around 1850. And all these small factories used horse-drawn carts to transport their products and raw materials. When the cargo was heavy – a load of bottles, for instance – there were sometimes six horses to each cart. Now, six dray horses and a cart need a fairly wide turning circle. And that’s why our streets were built so wide – to allow the horses to negotiate their way out of the factory entrances and on to the main road into the city.

That seems very reasonable to us. Do you know of any other explanation for our broad streets so beloved of driving instructors? Can you tell us any more about Arlingtonia’s industrial past? If so, or if you’d like to share any other insights into local history, do contact us at: arlingtonassociation@hotmail.co.uk.

We’d also love to hear from you if you have lived in the area a long time and would like to tell us about your early years here. The Arlingtonian’s editor will be happy to meet you and take notes of your recollections.