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Vymura Wallcoverings - A Short History
The history of coating and printing on the site at Newton (Hyde, Greater Manchester, UK) spanned one hundred years on the 5th October 1999, the centenary of the formation of the British Leathercloth Manufacturing Company Limited, and it's trademark "Rexine". An office was opened in Manchester, and a factory at Newton, Hyde, bounded by what was Muslin Street (Now Talbot Road), Damside Lane (now Cartwright Street) and Crow Street (Now behind a bricked-up entrance in the wall opposite the entry road to East Tame Business Park - Rexcine Way). The factory premises were purchased from the Dinting Soap and Chemical Company, which prior to 1894, was operated as cotton mills by the Ashton Brothers of Hyde.

This company was one of several registered in the late 1890's for the manufacture of nitrocellulose coated fabrics, the first licence for which had been granted to David Moseley & Sons Ltd of Ardwick, Manchester in 1893. By 1924, many of these companies had been acquired by Nobel Industries, the suppliers of nitrocellulose. Two years later, Nobel Industries Ltd merged with three other British chemical companies, Brunner, Mond and Co Ltd, British Dyestuffs Corporation Ltd and United Alkali Company Ltd to form Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd. A policy of consolidation was followed, and by 1930 the Newton works had become ICI's sole site for leathercloth production, and as such became the ICI Leathercloth Division.

From 1939, the Newton works made a notable contribution to the war effort, from balloon fabrics and dinghy aprons to flexible aircraft fuel tanks, but the outbreak of war had coincided with the first trials of a new coating material polyvinyl chloride. PVC's superior flexibility and durability quickly made it the predominant material. After 1945, the motor trade was the first to exploit PVC fully, and the demand for motor cars upholstered with "Vynide", the new soft PVC-coated seating fabric, continued to increase. The company became the world's largest exporter of leathercloth, with two and a half thousand employees, more than a hundred of whom were involved in research and development.

Innovation led to new processes, products as diverse as calendered ABS/PVC sheet for car door panels, extruded corrugated UPVC roofing, packings for cooling and effluent treatment towers, and perhaps the simplest concept of all, applying the PVC coating technology to paper for use as a wallcovering. Development of this product started in 1957 and on 13th February 1963, "Vymura", Europe's first vinyl wallcovering, was launched at a reception for the press and distinguished architects at the Washington Hotel in London. This was timely, as the motor trade was already researching fabric seat coverings to replace leathercloth, and the days of Newton works were numbered.

Expansion for wallcoverings production took place north of Talbot Road, on the site of Newton Farm and beyond. Eventually 100,000 tons of earth was removed from Hough Hill, to level the most northerly parts of the plant. Before that, the company had discovered that it could not satisfy the market structure of the wallcoverings trade with its single product. Uniqueness proved a disadvantage. A supporting range of conventional wallpapers was required, and this was quickly solved by the purchase of two local companies, Bulldog Wallpapers at Radcliffe, and Withins Paper Staining, with works at Oldham and Rochdale.

In the 1970's, the business was placed under the control of ICI's Paints Division (linking with their decorative products), and expansion continued on the Newton site, including a new office block on the other side of Cartwright Street. A distribution warehouse was built at Middleton, midway between the Hyde and Rochdale manufacturing centres. R & D continued, which in collaboration with ICI Plastics Division led to a further unique product. This was "Novamura", based on an expanded polyethylene substrate, which could be hung by pasting the wall (not possible with paper-based products because of wet shrinkage). However, the gravure printing process used for "Vymura", derived from leathercloth printing, proved unsuitable for the stretchy "Novamura", and two flexographic printing presses were installed at Rochdale to address this, later followed by a third.

Increased capacity at Newton resulted in the closure of Radcliffe and Oldham. Then, following the eventual demise of the leathercloth business in the mid-1980's, the closure of the south site (now operated as Newton Business Park) and the emergence of Vymura as an independent company, moves were made to consolidate manufacture north of Talbot Road. Flexo printing moved from Rochdale to Hyde in 1989, to complement four gravure presses and the single rotary screen plastisol printing facility, which had been installed in 1986 for the manufacture of "blown vinyl" wallpapers. Novamura proved un-profitable due to low sales volume, and production ceased in 1998.

At the end of 1999, the company merged with John Wilman/Coloroll Ltd, whose plant at Nelson, Lancs was closed. Seven gravure printing machines and some personnel transferred to Hyde, but the Wilman furnishing textiles division at Heasandford was retained, and the combined business continued under the name Englewood Ltd, later changed to CWV Group Ltd.

In late 2002, with a general decline in the market for wallcoverings, work began to compress the Newton plant into about one third of the previous area, without reducing production capacity. As part of this change, the PVC spreading operation was shut down, thus ending one hundred and three continuous years of coating in Newton.

In 2004 operations ceased at the Talbot Road production site.