Industry
With, what used to be, the tallest chimney in Cornwall within its
boundary, the home of Poweroll has an interesting history.
The site was previously a brick works, the home of pre-cast concrete cattle feeders, chicken houses and even a boat builders.
Peter Britton talks to the husband and wife team who have made this rural extremity of England the unlikely home of the modern cricket roller
A rolling programme
before they were born. They even went to the same school, albeit a couple of years apart. So, perhaps it was fate that formed their partnership, although it is unlikely they ever dreamt that, some years later, they would be making cricket rollers together! Both are natives of Cornwall. Shirley is
T
from Redruth, deep in the heart of the county, and Trevor from Callington, just on the Cornwall side of the Tamar river. In truth, he was born in Tavistock, but
44 PC JUNE/JULY 2012
revor and Shirley Luckhurst’s paths have crossed ever since their respective mums used to run a fruit and veg shop in the small town of Callington in Cornwall,
that was purely for postnatal reasons! Trevor joined Brown & Phillott Ltd. in 1980, making precision engineering items for local manufacturers. The site is [what you would now term] a small industrial estate on the outskirts of the village of Gunnislake. Its hilltop position affords great views across Dartmoor. When the then owner of Brown & Phillott was diagnosed with cancer, Trevor was offered the opportunity to purchase the company and, so, in 1987, just one year after getting married and both in their mid-twenties, he and Shirley found themselves owning and running a company whose client list was in decline due to customer closures and
downsizing. Staff totalled, including themselves, just four, working out of a collection of Cornish stone buildings dating back to 1870 that were in need of repair.
The site had previously been a brick works - a deep and overgrown hole in the ground outside is the only reminder of its existence. Pre-cast concrete cattle feeders, chicken houses and even boats have been built here, whilst a huge industrial chimney on the site was used for taking away the fumes from an adjoining arsenic factory! This structure used to be the tallest chimney in Cornwall, and even a Dakota DC3 flying into it on a foggy night
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