Summerstown Works – Its Buildings And Workers, Summerstown (1937)

Wonderful film from the 1930s showing a cardboard box factory in south-west London, with great footage of people on their way to and from work.

Hugh Stevenson & Sons began manufacturing cardboard boxes in Manchester before moving to London, Birmingham and Perth. Their London factory was in Summerstown in Wimbledon, and this film shows the large premises as well as workers arriving for the day. The shots of the workers are brilliant, showing a range of responses – some wave, some hide, some giggle, some stick their tongues out – from people who would not have been used to being filmed.

Summerstown, now largely lost to modern maps, is the area around Wimbledon Greyhound Stadium. Next to the Wandle, it attracted a lot of light industry such as Hugh Stevenson’s cardboard box factory. This was amalgamated with Bowater in 1971 and the site is now occupied by several small commercial firms. The film reveals it to have been a large factory, with many different buildings and several trucks. The factory is quiet at first – perhaps it’s filmed first thing in the morning – but soon more workers appear, and the film captures a wonderful cross-section of young and old, male and female, suited management, secretaries, foreman and those from the factory floor.