Monument record 4235/1 - Plumley Limebeds Soda Works

<1> Oxford Archaeology North, 2002, Plumley Limebeds, Northwich, Cheshire. (Client Report). SCH4242.

Ammonia Soda Company LTD (ASCOL) Soda Works established in 1907 by Ivan Livinstein, a Manchester Dyemaker, and Arthur Chamberlain, Chairman of the Birmingham ammunition firm of G Kyloch and Co. It was initially a private company but changed to a public company in 1912. From the onset the company had faced opposition from the local company Brunner Mond and Co who had bought the surrounding land and made daily samples from a stream below the works in hopes of finding evidence of pollution. They also sank their own brine shafts around the site to decrease the soda company's ability to pump (the company had four of its own pumps on the site). However this ended in 1916 when Brunner Mond and Co bought a controlling interest in the company. During the First World War the factory shared the site with the munitions factory (CSMR: 4235/1), however when this closed the Soda plant did not and carried on with pre-war production. In 1919 the Ammonia Soda Company that owned the site went into voluntary liquidation on the grounds of poor market conditions, and was bought outright by Brunner Mond. Production carried on until 1926 when the site was finally closed.