Factory living

Abstract

In the early 20th century, the Czech shoe-making company Bata designed and built a factory town in Great Britain. Close to the dock at Tilbury, Essex, this town was a replica of the Czech town of Zlin, created along clean, modernist lines and featuring acres of glass. The town included factory buildings, houses, a cinema, school, hotel and ballroom and a fire station. It was a self-enclosed community that thrived for almost 50 years. The company sold off the housing in the 1980s, however, and although a preservation order has ensured that the buildings remain largely intact, their uses have all changed.