Inside Shrewsbury's landmark Sentinel Works as it looks to the future

The Whitchurch Road factory employed more than 3,500 people at its height, with the sprawling site hosting a number of major manufacturers over the years – including Rolls Royce, Vickers, Doncasters and Radius.

It also played a part in the war effort, with its skilled workers re-purposed to provide equipment for the battle against Nazi Germany in the 1940s.

Its most recent occupants of the old Sentinnel Wagon Works, Radius, announced earlier this year it would be closing its Shrewsbury operation, bringing to an end decades of precision manufacturing at the location.

The site had produced highly specialised components for a number of customers – including for Rolls Royce jet engines used on planes and on Royal Navy ships.

While there had been suggestions that the buildings would be levelled for yet another Shrewsbury housing development, it is in the process of being reborn as the Sentinel Trade Park – ensuring employment continues at the venue.

As work takes place to prepare the Sentinel Works for its next chapter, the Shropshire Star joined site manager Colin Barnes, and Edward Goddard, director of Paterson Enterprises, which owns the premises and successful Shrewsbury business Morris Lubricants, for a look around.

What was known as A Block and B Block, are both now almost entirely empty, with the giant machines which had filled the historic workshops now a distant memory.

The marks remain on the floors where up until six months ago, manufacturing was still taking place, but there's little evidence of the decades of skilled work turned out from the site.

Incredibly the buildings are largely the same as constructed all the way back in 1915 when the Glasgow engineering firm Alley & MacLellan decided to open a new operation south of the border.

They chose Shrewsbury as the site for the factory, which would produce Sentinel Steam Waggons, until it was taken over by Rolls Royce in the 1950s as sales of Sentinel products diminished.

The firm had originally brought workers from Scotland and even built them homes, which still stand opposite the Sentinel Works' familiar entrance.

The steel frames of the buildings were created in Glasgow, and a careful eye will still be able to pick out the 'Lanarkshire Steel Co' logo which features on the massive struts which span the roof.

Colin, who worked at the site for the past six years for Radius, explained how it had been a base for countless Shropshire youngsters to learn their trade – creating parts that were sent out across the world.

He said: "The amount of people who started their careers here is amazing.

"The fencing guy who came here today, he said how he had trained as an apprentice here."

As the process continues to prepare A Block, 'Fabrications' or 'Fabs' as it was known, for its next life there are still a few reminders of what came before, with a list of shift patterns taped to a pillar.

A sign remains on the wall in the block bearing the ominous warning 'no structural work to be carried out on this wall without permission from the radiation officer'.

The wall surrounds what would have been the x-ray room – used to check every component which went out of the door

Given the specific nature of their destination – in jet engines operating at incredible temperatures – it was vital to ensure there were no imperfections, cracks, or issues with the safety critical pieces created.

In B Block – which will be taken over by Morris Lubricants as its distribution base – in an almost entirely empty unit sit two lonely tables.

One with its heavy steel top would have been used for marking off – making sure measurements were correct on a perfectly flat surface.

Other parts of the historic workshop remain including the huge electricity transformers which would have provided power to the machines.

In the iconic building which faces onto Whitchurch Road, the offices currently lie empty – awaiting their new tenants in the form of the Enterprise car rental firm, who will be taking over part of the building.

Speaking about the end of manufacturing at the site Colin said there was sadness at the conclusion of more than a hundred years of work at premises – but there is excitement that the buildings are being readied for the future.

He said: "Hats off to Ed and his brother Andrew, they are not flattening it and putting houses on it."

Colin said there would be a new beginning for the site, providing jobs and exciting opportunities for new businesses.

Edward explained what had led to the plans for Sentinel Trade Park, and about how the site will also provide an exciting new chapter for the Morris Lubricant business.

He said: "We as a company purchased the site about six or seven years ago, and since then we have been renting the site to Radius, who have been on the site making various parts for an engineering background.

"But they have decided they are moving their operation to Sheffield so the site has been on a sort of shut down over the last six months and we got it handed back to us on the beginning of September so we are now looking towards its future, our plan is to move some of our business up here into a major part of the site and then split the rest of the other site up for future tenants hopefully."

He added: "It is an exciting move for us, moving up here is a major step in the history of the business but it enables us to move forward again so it is an exciting step."