Revolutionary Lowestoft factory remembered

It was once a showpiece of Victorian engineering, a factory which harnessed groundbreaking techonology to transform food storage and transportation.

Now as the last derelict structure on the site of the once-mighty East Anglian Ice Company is being torn down, the great-grandson of the entrepreneur who opened the factory is ensuring that its legacy will live on in more than just memories.

The small office building which was once the beating heart of the ice factory on the waterfront in Lowestoft is being demolished brick-by-brick, removing the few remaining traces of the industrial force which once saw 75 tonnes of ice a day produced on the site.

The factory, which was the third biggest of its kind in the country in the early years of the twentieth century, revolutionised food transportation and storage by mass-producing ice on an industrial scale.

As well as being sold to local fishermen to store their catch, the ice from the Riverside Road plant was transported around Norfolk and Suffolk by train and on specially-built wherries to be sold to the lucky few who had ice boxes in their larders to keep their meat, milk and butter cool.

Now David Forster, whose great-grandfather opened the factory in 1898 and who worked there himself, is hoping to preserve the company's cherished memory by buying the bricks from the old office block and using them as part of a building project north of Norwich.

He said: 'This now just looks like the wreck of a Victorian building, but the factory which has long gone had a huge impact here. Lowestoft would never have had such a big fishing industry without the ice, and it was transported from here all over the region.'

The bricks from the demolished offices are being stored and will soon be used to create a new building next to a Victorian water tower which Mr Forster has restored in Cawston, near Aylsham.

'It's sad to see the old building being torn down, but it had become unsafe. There's a real poetry in it for me though, because I'm giving the old bricks a new lease of life.

'I think if my father, grandfather and great-grandfather had seen the offices like this, they would have been upset, but I think they'd be pleased that I'm protecting a bit of their history.

'My water tower was built in the same month of the same year as the ice factory, so it's a fitting place for the bricks to end up.'

The office building, which is expected to be completely demolished by next week, has stood empty for several decades as the business, then called the Lowestoft Ice Company, moved next to the fish docks on Battery Green Road in the 1960s.

Mr Forster said: 'This was such an important part of Lowestoft's history, and it's a shame that the building couldn't be preserved, but I'm glad I can play a part in keeping it alive in some way.'