A Country Mansion on the outskirts of Malmesbury played a major role in helping to win the Second World War.
Just before the war, Cowbridge House, and its picturesque grounds beside the River Avon, was put up for sale by Major Sir Philip Hunloke who had been Master of King George V's yacht.
The 19th century neo-baronial style house was turned into a factory to produce highly secret radar. In August, 1939, when war seemed imminent, it became necessary to remove the work away from the more vulnerable Southend factory of E. K. Cole.
The Ministry of Aircraft Production approved Cowbridge House which became a major unit of the Ekco organisation. The piggeries were transformed into electro-plating shops and greenhouses into machine shops.
Messages from the Admiralty, Fleet Air Arm and the RAF indicated that Ekco radar equipment was helping to defeat the enemy in every sphere.
Queen Mary took a keen interest in the Malmesbury factory during the war and she and many important officers visited the works.
At Malmesbury, Ekco became the first company to produce air interception radar and anti-surface vessel radar for use by aircraft in searching the seas.
Malmesbury played a significant role in the further development of radar for military and later for commercial use. Leading airlines owe a great deal to the development at Malmesbury of the airborne weather radar system that allows airliners to steer a safe and comfortable course between turbulent storm clouds.
The factory's wartime achievements are to feature in a series of documentaries on life on the Home Front during the 1939-45 War, entitled A People's War. Thames Television is making a series and in one of the programmes producer and director Mr Taylor Downing wants to look at the works.
He is interested in tracing people who worked in the factory during the war years and also people from Malmesbury who have stories to tell about the arrival of hundreds of new workers in their own town, He would like to contact anyone who might have photographs or home movies of Malmesbury or the factory itself from that period.
A wartime record of the factory was written by Mr I. Lipman, works manager, who founded and established the works in 1939 and continued as manager until 1946.
When Mr Lipman was running the electrical appliance division of Ekco Radio, he offered his services to the Ministry of Supply and was requested to find, within a radius of 100 miles of the west of London, factory premises capable of being used to produce radio equipment.
After choosing premises he was instructed to equip them with enough machine tools to enable him to organise production of unspecified equipment, with a workforce of not more than 200 people.
If war started, he could recruit a nucleus of staff at not higher than foreman level from the main works at Southend. He set off with his wife and a couple of suitcases and after searching for three or four days he arrived at the Old Bell Hotel, Malmesbury, where he was to meet Mr Eric Cole, head of Ekco, and others to report progress. Germany was on the point of invading Poland and a suitable site was a matter of urgency.
He decided to look for a large country house near a centre to draw labour and was put in touch with three West Country firms specialising in such property. From a number of lengthy lists he found Cowbridge House.
Industrial water was available, it had 14 acres of grounds, a mill with its own water power generator and six cottages. Without hesitation he bought the place, lock stock and barrel, for £6,500 and called off his search.
The next day war was declared. Cowbridge House turned out to be an excellent choice with large rooms that could be further enlarged, many outbuildings and a well stocked kitchen garden and three large greenhouses with peaches and grapes.
Mr Lipman wrote, "Throughout the war, grapes and peaches in season were sold in the canteen to employees, and fresh lettuce salads served throughout the year from intensive use of the greenhouses."
A local builder was employed for six to eight weeks to alter the house and this, together with the preparation work, all took place during the phoney war of 1939/40. Under relative peaceful conditions it was possible to alter, rebuild and equip the place and engage a nucleus of staff.
One of the workers at that time was Mr Lewin Salter, of Common Road, Malmesbury, who was born in the town and was employed by a local building firm. He went to the factory in 1939 on maintenance work before the factory started production.
He recalls, "I was doing painting, decorating and plumbing and was the 12th person to be taken on. My wife, who died two years ago, also worked their during the war when they were recruiting operators. I worked there for 31 years until I was made redundant in 1971 at the age of 60. Some houses, including Rodbourne House, were taken over as hostels for trainees and I did maintenance work there as well.
"I was switched to maintenance of equipment in the factory at the end of 1939 and later was transferred to doing actual production work in the machine shop. I had a varied career there and went through the whole system.
"I went on to so many different departments I cannot remember them all but I finished as an executive, a production controller. I was involved with radar and other military equipment.
"When I was in the machine shop, a publisher called Tom Harrison was given permission to put a girl in the works to make inquiries which resulted in a book called War Factory being published. I was mentioned in the book."
Mr Salter said they worked regular hours except when they were asked to work through the night as well. He could remember the visit by Queen Mary and another by the test pilot John "Cats Eyes" Cunningham and his airgunner who was awarded the Victoria Cross. They were entertained by E.N.S.A. and the radio programme Workers' Playtime was broadcast from the factory.
"The wartime years were an experience for me as I had never worked in a factory before. The number of people employed there rose to about 1,000 in the war but afterwards the works gradually ran down and changed over to commercial production," he said.
Since the war, the works have experienced a number of changes which have brought an end to all manufacturing work. During the latter part of 1969 there was a fall in radio sales and because the Telephone Manufacturing Company had a large order book, the factory became part of TMC on January 1, the following year.
The telecommunications firm has built a huge three-story T-shaped office block on the front of the site and the premises are now occupied by engineers engaged on development work. TMC is a wholly-owned subsidiary company of Philips, of Eindhoven, Holland.
A spokesman for Thames Television said a series of seven one-hour programme would be broadcast in a year or 18 months' time.
"The idea for the programme was one of many put forward for possible documentaries. It is very early days yet as work on the series has only recently started. It takes a year to accumulate all the information, followed by other work including editing the film.
"We do not know at this stage whether the series will focus on one part of the country or deal with various aspects of life on the Home Front. The idea of the series is to look at areas which have never been examined before."
