The Classic Machinery Network

Last days of Hicks lodge, just outside Ashby de la Zouch.

A couple of the Big John dragline, Coalfield North, Ibstock. (lowering the boom)

Shots from today

a few more

Park Wall North at tow law i see

I am new to the forum and have a particular interest in company histories and would put Lehane, Mackenzie & Shand at the top of my list so I was very pleased to see the photographs of Shand Mining's opencast equipment.

My dad worked for a local building contractor in Tain in Northern Scotland, Alexander Morrison Builders, who were taken over by Shands in the mid 70s after they were separately acquired by Selection Trust, an international mining conglomerate. I have only a few snippets of information on Shand secured from old company brochures and given that they disappeared in the late 80s there is not a lot to be found on the internet. The Meadowgate opencast coal mine documentary on youtube is fascinating.

The Shand empire was diverse by comparison with todays major contractors but I guess they were broadly similar to their competitors at the time. Shands main business was opencast mining by the 70s (including mines in the US), they were a civil engineering and building contractor (but in decline by this point), owned a pipe coating factory in joint venture with American giant Morrison-Knudsen serving the offshore oil industry, had several autonomous local contractors (Otty Brothers in Leeds, Morrisons in Scotland and Biggs Wall in Arlesey), CAST Developments quarry in Mansfield and Penryn Granite in Cornwall. All names consigned to history with the exception of Morrison I suppose. Working with Christiani & Nielsen they were a major contractor on the motorway programme in the 60s and 70s and here in Scotland they built the M74 Hamilton bypass and the Erskine Bridge.

As IBH has noted in earlier posts Shand Mining was acquired by CP Holdings along with a number of other opencast contractors with the Dyggor Gaylord name prevailing longest. I am going to guess that Charter Consolidated (the conglomerate who had bought Selection Trust in 1981) was selling off various non-core assets by the late 80s to concentrate on its core business which was based around Glasgow's Howden Group - a manufacturing business. CP will have bought Shand Mining in a deal preceding the purchase of the Shand Group construction businesses by the Morrison family in 1989.

The Rowsley yard will have been primarily for the opencast mining plant and was redeveloped as the shopping centre but Morrison took on what would have been the civils plant yard in Methley along with a small collection old crawler cranes (including interesting Hymac and JCB crane conversions) and other dated plant. Biggs Wall and its fleet of Caterpillar pipe tractors also passed to Morrison.

CP Holdings, again as noted above, trade as property developer Waystone and they have specialised in successfully remediating and developing brownfield sites across the middle part of England. The business is still run by the former Shand managing director but there is no active opencast work.

The Shand name does live on through at least two independent businesses - Shand Engineering (based in Humberside) and Sharrock Shand in Gibraltar who are a main contractor run by former Shand people.

Shand Construction was rebranded Morrison Construction in the early 90s and had a bit of a resurgence under Morrison family ownership and can now be found absorbed into Galliford Try which still uses the Morrison name in Scotland. They still have part of the original Shand office in Darley Dale where their international construction business is run from. Galliford Try is a very successful modern style construction services business but its heritage includes some great companies - Gallifords, Try, Shand, Otty, Morrison, Wights of Polmont, Sutherlands of Golspie and I am sure a host of local English companies that I am still to find out about.

Morrison Utility Services is a quite separate business based around what was originally Biggs Wall and it has retained the original Morrison corporate identity.

This has turned into a bit of an essay and might have been better placed in the company history section but this is where I found the discussion on Shand.

What am I after? I would like to hear more about Shands and see more photographs of their mining and construction equipment including any lorries.

Thank you for reading.

Rhigos data .....

http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=6599350

A 1978 UK advert for Simms.