A changing Hydro

T
he “Newton” part of the name
means “new town,” a British
program that created towns from
scratch, starting just after World War II.
Every square inch of England has a story
behind it, though, and this patch was
earlier called “Acley,” after the site of a
Saxon settlement.
The industrial site now occupied by Hydro
Polymers was used for munitions manufac-
ture – Royal Ordinance Factory No. 27, it was
called during the early 1940s. The Aycliffe
Angels, women who staffed the munitions
operations during the war, kept the factory
humming as well as the home fires burning.
Life in the early post-war years in Aycliffe
can only be looked at by our modern eyes
with awe. Returning soldiers didn’t know if
there would be work for them, the women
who ran the factories found themselves
largely unemployed.
There was little in the way of housing near-
by, meaning sometimes arduous “commutes.”
One worker counted himself lucky to be able
to cycle from home, 10 miles away as the
crow flies but many more in actuality.
First came Bakelite Ltd., an early plastics
company, as the first post-war owner. In fact,
for many years afterward, the faint outline of
the company name was still visible on one of
the original buildings.
Next came Bakelite Xylonite Ltd. the pro-
duct of a merger with British Xylonite. In 1974,
British Industrial Plastics entered the picture.
Hydro bought the company in 1982. The
operation nearly changed hands again, in the
late 1990s, when Hydro considered selling its
entire petrochemicals business to a European
competitor, but the deal fell through.
In the near future, a new logo – and name
– will mark the site.
hi! > Craig Johnson
photos > used with the kind permission of
www.aycliffeangels.org.uk
more on Aycliffe > page 18-21
postcard from Newton Innovation Aycliffe hi! 35
The Aycliffe
Angels at work.