The 13th April 2012 was a very sad for Croydon as after 168 years Gillett & Johnston Ltd moved down the road to Bletchingley. After 15 years of working at Twin Bridges Business Park the decision was made to relocate after our landlords were expanding and we were unable to find suitable premises in the Croydon area. So on this cold and wet day in April we handed back the keys.
In 1844 when William Gillett started the business in Croydon the company was one of the first steam-powered clock factories in the world and in 1868 the well-known clock tower at the factory was built as a working advertisement. The premises continued to expand until 1957 when the company was bought by Cecil Coombes who was an employee who moved the business down the road. The premises at Union Road were demolished in 1993 very sadly although we have retained the large dials from the clock tower.
The Bletchingley site gives us many benefits by being close to the M25 but still on the doorstep of London, by being surrounded by beautiful English countryside but still within commuter distance for our engineers.
We have had several new factors to consider now we are based outside Croydon. Our first was that as our business park also has a working farm next door harvest time was rather interesting with huge combine harvest machines driving past us daily. The other was moving large machinery down small winding country roads which was very expertly executed by our HGV driver who needed a lie down after transferring 46 large machines into the new premises. There has been the inevitable ‘can’t find anything’ quotes but all our engineers carried out the move beautifully whilst still working hard on jobs. Shortly after moving we were Struck by lightning twice causing all our computer and phone system to go down.
We are now settled into our new premises and enjoying the larger office space. Although we keep telling people that we are from Croydon which turns out to be a hard habit to break. For more information please leave a comment below or, if preferred, use the contact form.