At one time West Cumbria had a fantastic industrial workforce. High Duty Alloys of Distington was a proud part of that history. It was the place where I served my Engineering Apprenticeship from 1965 to 1970.

This is part of the history and demise of that great plant that played a crucial role during WW2.

High Duty Alloys Ltd was created by Colonel Wallace Charles Devereux in Slough in 1927 to produce aluminium parts for aircraft.

During the 1930s HDA was producing parts for Rolls Royce in particular and demand led to construction of another factory at Redditch, Worcestershire, which was opened in August 1939.

In September 1940 after the outbreak of war in 1939, HDA Management at Slough required to plan for another ‘shadow’ factory.

The Air Ministry with the persuasion of ‘Jack’ Adams, (later Lord Adams of Ennerdale), Secretary of the Cumberland Development Council, selected a site at Lillyhall Farm, Distington.

The site’s sub-strata was particularly suitable for the positioning of a giant “Erie” forging hammer and associated operating and supporting equipment. Construction on the site started in January 1940 by John Laing Ltd of Carlisle and production began in December 1940.

Production at Distington during the war years was frenetic: the foundry, forge and extrusion presses produced parts for ‘virtually all British aircraft and aero engines’ and the work force reached a peak of almost 3000 men and women working around the clock, seven days a week.

The post-war period saw some difficult adjustments: the workforce fell to around 1000 people and the reduced demand for aircraft parts saw the factory producing aluminium for pre-fab houses and milk churns.

HDA restructured the company allocating Slough for castings; Redditch for forging and Lillyhall for foundry work and extrusions.

A 5,000 ton extrusion press, (The Tania) was added to the two 2,000 ton presses, (the Hampton and the Harrow) and one 3,000 ton press (The Hounslow) on the Lillyhall site in 1952.

The presses were operated by Air/ water accumulator’s.These presses were joined by a 1,250 ton oil operated (Hendon) integrated hydraulic extrusion press in the early 1960s in the South extrusion plant.

Later in the mid 60’s a 2,750 ton and 1,600 ton hydraulic extrusion presses were installed in the North extrusion plant to meet demand for commercial products.

In the 1960s the site was producing items such as ladders, lighting, car parts, stadium seating, scaffolding tube, underground rolling stock, motorway crash barriers as well as many other products.

HDA won the Queen’s Award to Industry in 1969.

The HDA Lillyhall site by this time was producing over 100 parts for the supersonic airliner Concorde as well as parts for the harrier jets, helicopters, warships, armoured fighting vehicles and missiles.

Recession in the aluminium industry led to further major restructing with job losses at Lillyhall and the parent group Hawker Siddeley, making each division autonomous.

The Lillyhall site became HDA Extrusions Ltd from 1 January 1976. From March 1979, the company started experienced continual changes of ownership until Pechiney, Europe’s largest producer of aluminium became the owner.

Under Pechiney the workforce continued to drop due to declining orders from a few hundred workers to 160.

In 2007 it was announced that the company would close and all remaining production would switch to France with all the workforce becoming redundant.

Sadly the site is now partially demolished, yet many hundreds of people alive today have lasting memories of the ‘HDA family’ memories of the presses, stretchers, saws, the cranes, horizontal and vertical heat treatment ovens, foundry, inspection department, toolroom and maintenance departments.

Only a factory yes, but a factory that will not be forgotten just like the friendships that were kindled therein where generations of the same families worked, grandfather, father, son, mother and daughter.

G S Fawcett

High Harrington

Workington