{"id":17744,"date":"2025-08-12T09:01:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T08:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/?p=17744"},"modified":"2025-08-06T20:04:54","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T19:04:54","slug":"in-memory-of-macleans-trico-1990","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/?p=17744","title":{"rendered":"In Memory of Macleans & Trico – 1990"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In Memory of Macleans & Trico<\/strong>: More from my walk on Sunday 7th January 1990 – the previous post was Chapel, Gothic House, the Globe and Great West Road – 1990<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\"Trico,<\/a>\n<\/div>
Macleans Toothpaste, Great West Rd, Brentford, Hounslow, 1990, 90-1g-03<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Toothpaste in my youth came as dentifrice, a usually pink powder or block in small tins, around 7 or 8 cm diameter and 2 cm tall, and Macleans had a patent aluminium tin. In my home we only changed to toothpaste in tubes at some time in the 1950s, but we could have been behind the times. And we used Gibbs Dentifrice, not Macleans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Macleans was begun by a New Zealand born businessman, Alex C. Maclean in 1919, and moved into this splendid new factory on the Great West Road in 1932. The company was bought by Beechams in 1938 and later was swallowed up as a part of GlaxoSmithKline or GSK. You can still apparently get Macleans toothpaste though it bears little relationship to the orginal product and is now produced by Haleon<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\"Trico,<\/a>\n<\/div>
Macleans, Great West Rd, Brentford, Hounslow, 1990, 90-1g-04<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The centenary of the Great West Road is celebrated in the book The Great West Road: A Centenary History<\/a> by James Marshall, so far as I know not a relative of mine. “For two miles, from its junction with the North Circular Road and Chiswick High Road to Gillette Corner, a corridor of inter-war factory buildings emerged, a stylish celebration of art deco architecture<\/em>.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\"Trico,<\/a>\n<\/div>
Macleans, Great West Rd, Brentford, Hounslow, 1990, 90-1g-61<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately many of the buildings have now gone, Trico and Macleans among them, although a few of the grander survive. I think I knew when I took these pictures two years before the business moved that these would shortly be demolished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\"Trico,<\/a>\n<\/div>
Trico, 980, Great West Rd, Brentford, Hounslow, 1990, 90-1g-51<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Trico Products Windscreen Wiper factory, No. 980, Great West Road, Brentford opened in 1928, three years after the new road was opened by George V in 2025 as the Brentford by-pass. Trico relocated to Pontypool, South Wales in 1992 and the building was demolished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Certainly I took more pictures of these buildings than the others along this stretch of road, about three times as many as are in this post, though most of the rest are fairly similar to these.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\"Trico,<\/a>\n<\/div>
Trico, 980, Great West Rd, Brentford, Hounslow, 1990, 90-1g-52<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In the 1980s there was still little general appreciation of Art Deco or moderne buildings from the 1920s and 1930s and few had been give the protection afforded by listing. The most celebrated case of demolition was the Firestone Tyre Factory<\/a> which had closed and been sold to Trafalgar House, a company run by Lord Victor Matthews and Nigel Broakes on 22nd August 1980.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Department of the Environment inspector had the same week decided the building should be listed, but as it was the Bank Holiday weekend no civil servant was available to sign the emergency listing document. “On Saturday 23 August Lord Matthews ordered demolition men to destroy the main features of the facade \u2013 the ceramic tiles around the entrance, the white pillars, the pediment above and the bronze lamp standards.<\/em>” And so one of the finest buildings on the stretch was destroyed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\"Trico,<\/a>\n<\/div>
Trico, 980, Great West Rd, Brentford, Hounslow, 1990, 90-1g-54<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Victor Matthews, who as well as being Chairman of Trafalgar House was the proprietor of the Daily Express, had been made a Life Peer as Baron Matthews of Southgate a month before this despicable act of cultural vandalism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\"Grand<\/a>\n<\/div>
Grand Union Canal, Trico, Great West Rd, Brentford, Hounslow, 1990, 90-1g-56<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The canal which had been so important in earlier Brentford history was irrelevant to the companies which now set up along the new road. They were entirely based around road transport and very much used their impressive frontages as advertisements for their businesses to those driving along the new highway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\"Grand<\/a>\n<\/div>
Grand Union Canal, Trico, Great West Rd, Brentford, Hounslow, 1990, 90-1g-41<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

More from other buildings along the Great West Road in the next instalment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Flickr<\/a> – Facebook<\/a> – My London Diary<\/a> – Hull Photos<\/a> – Lea Valley<\/a> – Paris<\/a>
London’s Industrial Heritage<\/a> – London Photos<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

All photographs on this page are copyright \u00a9 Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In Memory of Macleans & Trico: More from my walk on Sunday 7th January 1990 – the previous post was Chapel, Gothic House, the Globe and Great West Road – 1990 Toothpaste in my youth came as dentifrice, a usually pink powder or block in small tins, around 7 or 8 cm diameter and 2 … Continue reading In Memory of Macleans & Trico – 1990<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,3],"tags":[1336,21431,21458,21464,21459,3902,21456,21462,21460,1253,9639,1277,21455,21457,17,1343,21461,6411,83,21463,21432],"class_list":["post-17744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-londonphotos","category-my-own-work","tag-1336","tag-21431","tag-a-centenary-history","tag-advertisements","tag-art-deco-architecture","tag-brentford","tag-brentford-by-pass","tag-cultural-vandalism","tag-firestone","tag-grand-union-canal","tag-great-west-rd","tag-hounslow","tag-in-memory-of-trico","tag-james-marshall","tag-london","tag-london-photos","tag-lord-matthews","tag-middlesex","tag-peter-marshall","tag-road-transport","tag-trico"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17744"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17751,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17744\/revisions\/17751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}