Just got a copy of this book below which is quite an interesting read, at least for those of us who still remember spending many happy Saturday and Sunday mornings back in the 1970/80's, climbing over rusty and accident damaged cars in a local breakers yard (before Health & Safety) looking for the parts to repair or 'upgrade' our early Minis on a tight budget. The book is a limited print run, not a cheap or 'mainstream interest' book, but £5,250 has apparently been raised so far for the chosen charities, to be shared between Cancer Research, Macmillan and the Woodland Trust.
100 Years- Albert Looms Ltd vehicle dismantlers.
'Albert Looms' a former Derby car breakers yard closed over a year ago after more than a century of trading. The seven-acre Spondon site was sold to a developer with plans to turn the site into a business park with small and medium-sized industrial units. In a nod to its past life, the developers Ivygrove said it will name the Megaloughton Lane site 'Looms Business Park'.
Ray Kirk, former operations manager at Albert Looms has been writing a book on the site's history. Albert Looms started trading in 1920, specialising in demolition work and dismantling old railway rolling stock and had a direct rail link to Chaddesden Sidings from its yard.
It then began to dismantle cars for scrap in the early 1970s initially as an experiment, in part due to the Dr Beeching cuts to the railways in the 1960s. The first car booked in was a Mini in 1972, bought for £3! (The last car scrapped in 2024 was also an Issigonis design....a Mk1 ADO 16 - photo in the book). As word spread around Derby, more cars started coming in from the public and customers came searching for parts, revitalising the yard. The last non-car scrap arriving at the yard was in September 1973.
Looms soon became fully aware of the number of unpaid for items that went out hidden in customers toolboxes or pockets and the need to understand the true value of the parts offered, with more structured pricing rather than a rough guess being made at the scrap yards exit gate, also guided by the need to make a fair profit while still looking after their loyal customers.
https://www.facebook...5/?locale=en_GB
"Albert Looms Through Time"
https://albertlooms.com/
Edited by mab01uk, 19 January 2026 - 12:39 PM.
