:: SITE & AREA HISTORY

The history of the X-ray Factory is being documented by David Papadopoulos. His ongoing research for re:location is being published on his web-pages. He is also making a space in the building for histories & old maps. Wayne Bartlett is the on-site custodian of any historically important archives found during re:location.

The X-Ray Factory is in Soho, Smethwick, at the south end of the man-made Galton Valley. This valley is a three-mile stretch of immense canal-cutting, dotted with industrial heritage sites of world importance. Galton Valley was created in 1825 by Thomas Telford and a huge workforce of mainly Irish navvies. When finished it was the largest man-made earthwork in the world; all created by simple picks, shovels, and wooden barrows! The Valley is spanned by the cast-iron Galton Bridge -- a close relative of the famous one at nearby Ironbridge, but without the crowds of tourists.

The most important historical site is the Soho Foundry; here Boulton and Watt mass-produced their commercial steam-engines, which powered the Industrial Revolution.

There are also some relic fragments of the original heather & gorse heathland, recently discovered during butterfly-surveys on the Galton Valley canal cutting -- rare in an area where the original landscape was simply erased by industrialisation.