2011 Streak 51/365: Model Dairy

2011 Streak 51/365: Cycle 21.6 miles, Time - 1hr 35min, Weather - misty grey

The one thing I know is that everything has a natural lifecycle. Everything comes into being, flourishes and then diminishes until it is no more. By exercising and avoiding harmful habits like smoking I may be trying to pushing back at the dimming of the day but that is all it is - pushing back. The trajectory cannot be altered by much.

Surprisingly this post is not going to be a lament about ageing and the fraying of my tendons (though that is always close to the surface of my mind); it is actually about firms i.e. the lifecycle of businesses. I think it is helpful if we see them as organisms as it stops us getting too sentimental when we think of enterprises and activities that are no more.

Hemel and the surrounding area is full of traces of past industries. The major one is paper making and the John Dickinson mills but there are others, for example Ovaltine. It may be still drunk but it is no longer made at Kings Langley

Although this drink originated in Switzerland it actually seemed tremendously British and it seems a shame it is no longer made here. I have rather warm, mental images of inter-war families sitting round the wireless set listening to the Ovaltinies and the ritual of a hot milky drink before bedtime. 

From the point of view of me cycling round the countryside that is neither here nor there. All I can see is what is left of the enterprise, the site and the buildings. The main Art Deco Ovaltine factory has been turned into apartments, with the facade preserved, however I find this model dairy just as interesting.

There are a couple of reasons:  the first is the production model where the company was worried about the supply of raw materials and so provided its own barley, malt,milk and eggs from its nearby farms. It is the exact opposite of today's model where everything comes from far and wide, as much as possible is outsourced and it is all delivered just-in-time. The second is the fancy of building a dairy modelled on on built by Louis XVI for Marie Antoinette.

I like the idea of trying to do things in an exemplary fashion and highlight it by commissioning an elaborate building. I like it when architecture tells a story.

Of course these buildings are now houses.


P.S The BBC history website has many interesting reminiscences; one of them is from someone who worked on the Ovaltine farms in the War - here