Brentford

The Golden Mile is the name given to a stretch of the Great West Road north of Brentford running west from the western boundary of Chiswick in London, United Kingdom.

It was so called due to the concentration of industry along this short stretch of road. This section of the Great West Road was opened in 1925 to bypass the notoriously congested Brentford High Street and several factories of architectural merit were rapidly built along the road to take advantage of both the good communications it provided, and the easy availability of land for new buildings. Many examples of the Art Deco architecture remain.

These factories included:

• Smith's Potato Crisps Ltd opened in 1927 (Brand now owned by Pepsico, acquired in 1989). Factory rebuilt and expanded in 1930 with colonnaded frontage.

• The Firestone Tyre Company. Built 1928, designed by Wallis, Gilbert and Partners. It was the first overseas factory built by the Firestone company of America. The building frontage was demolished during a public holiday in August 1980 shortly before a preservation order was due to be served on it to retain the Art Deco architecture. The remaining gates and piers are in a Jazz Modern style.

• The Tri-Co Windscreen Wiper factory, opened in 1928.

(Closed in 199?, demolished, and the site was to be used for U.K. headquarters of Samsung. The Asian economic crisis in the late 1990s prevented this, and the site now houses the headquarters building of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).)

• Sperry Gyroscope Company Limited factory opened in 1931

• Coty Cosmetics opened in 1932

• Maclean's opened in 1932

• The Gillette factory, designed by designed by Sir Banister Flight Fletcher in 1936-37. Picture

• The Pyrene fire extinguisher company, built between 1929 and 1930, designed by Wallis, Gilbert & Partners.

• Beecham's Pharmaceuticals, Wallis House, built between 1936 and 1942 originally for Simmonds Aerocessories, designed by Wallis, Gilbert and Partners. Named after the architect, Wallis.

This stretch of road includes a preserved advertising sign known to many drivers coming into London on the M4 motorway. The illuminated sign, showing a bottle of Lucozade is on the wall of what was the Lucozade factory, which opened in 1953. The original tag-line was "Lucozade - aids recovery", but the prevalence of AIDS/HIV fom the 1980s onwards meant that it was regarded that the sign could be misinterpreted, and the tag-line was changed. It now reads "Lucozade - replaces lost energy".

Leicester

The Golden Mile is also a name given to a stretch of Belgrave Road in Leicester, United Kingdom. It is renowned for its authentic Indian Restaurants, and people come to the city especially to enjoy true Indian food, at one of the specialist Restaurants there.

Sources

The Archive Photographs Series, Brentford, Tempus Publishing Ltd, ISBN 0752406272

Author's personal knowledge of the Brentford area.