John Needham - the drain cover tycoon

Bridgnorth, Shropshire, 2022

 Having lived in the vicinity of Stockport for a number of years I was quite used to seeing grids and manhole covers staring up at me with the words Needham and Stockport prominently displayed on them. Not that I walked round with my nose pointing down, it was just something that I saw without really noticing. But then as I travelled further afield I gradually noticed that Needham's street ironmongery was present in all sorts of far flung places. Here's a fairly old example from Bridgnorth in Shropshire where you'd really expect them to have their own foundries creating local drain covers. But no Needhams were obviously one of the market leaders and they were in the business of making and designing a whole range of very necessary street furniture capable of standing up to increasingly heavy traffic over the years.

Something is still there

John Needham set up his first foundry in the centre of Stockport in 1834. Business boomed and the family firm prospered such that a new foundry was established on the edge of town at Romiley Street which traded until 1979 when it was bought out. Some of the factory buildings still exist but it all looks a bit grim so rather than a photo I've posted a nice coloured drawing of the site as it stands today. I used to walk past here on the odd pub crawl years ago but I don't remember a furnace or foundry. Nevertheless all sorts of drain designs can be found all over the country. 

Prestatyn, Denbighshire, January 2023

Here's a Needham's cover I spotted in Prestatyn yesterday. It's a double triangle design which is more stable than a straightforward square cover. You can imagine that over time on uneven roads and as grit gets stuck between the seals that manhole covers can get quite wobbly and noisy. In fact drain cover design is quite a complex subject as Needham must have realised early on. Covers over sewage drains need to be airtight, other covers need to be lockable to prevent unauthorised access or theft and, where fast flowing water needs to be drained effectively grids, etc., need to be capable of collecting large volumes of water rapidly. Round covers have the advantage that they can't fall in the hole, they're easier to manoeuvre as they can be rolled along the ground and they don't have to be aligned in a specific direction.

So Needham's foundry is not in business any longer having closed down over 40 years ago. Another much bigger foundry which was just a couple or so miles away was Exors of James Mills in Bredbury, once the largest manufacturer of bright steel outside the USA.  The vast complex, known as Bredbury Steel Works, was the employer of thousands of local workers but closed down in the 1980's. Part of the reason I've mentioned this is that I worked at Bredbury Steel in the late 1960's