Breathing New Life Into Former Charles Nelson Cement Site

We were contacted recently on Twitter by a local company who purchased some land from us near Southam, Warwickshire where Rugby cement used to own a Cement Plant.

It was originally the Charles Nelson cement and lime works which operated in the last century and closed in about 1945. The site is adjacent to the Grand Union canal which was used for transport of incoming raw materials and outgoing finished products, which included cement, clay pipes and bricks.

It has now been redeveloped into a waterways training centre where boaters can learn the finer points of navigating the canals on narrow boats. There was originally an arm of the canal which went into the cement works – this had been filled in and is now restored to its former glory.

Steve Vaughan of Willow Wren Training showed us some excellent pictures of the site at the turn of the century and the “before and after” pictures since they acquired the site from CEMEX in 2013. It was also great to see a picture of one of our trucks delivering readymix, Readymix Concrete, for the foundations of their new training facility – closing the circle nicely.

If any local people are interested to visit, there is a public footpath running across the site, which is along the course of the old railway.