Geograph - photograph every grid square

Re:
Ames Crosta Mills drain flap, Dundonald (December 2014)
which I have only just seen, I am the great great granddaughter of Richard Ames of Ames Crosta Mills. I note that you have found very little about the company. I have the following information from Mr Bolton, who was Chairman of Ames Crosta Babcock until his retirement in 1968. :

In Heywood James Mills and Co had been millwrights and engineers since about the 1830's. Most of their work was concerned with the engineering aspects of the cotton industry, local mill, etc. About the beginning of the 20th century Mr Joshua Bolton, a Mechanical Engineer, was the Sewage Works Manager in Heywood and he collaborated with Mr Mills in the invention and design of sundry mechanical equipment used at Sewage Purification Works. Some of the patents taken out were successful but James Mills & Co had little or no selling organisation.

Around the 1880's Mr Richard Ames and Mr Crosta were employed by the Railway and General Engineering Company in Nottingham. They decided to start up on their own making iron work for municipalities, eg manhole covers, street gullies, ventilation columns, penstocks and the like. They founded a company, Ames Crosta Sanitary Engineering Co Ltd. About 1905 this company became sole selling agents for the sewage purification machinery produced by James Mills and Co. More ideas were developed and patented, the business began to prosper, particularly the Simplex Surface Aeration process became universally well known.

In about 1925 it was decided that the idea of Ames Crosta Sanitary Engineering Company being agents and James Mills & Co being manufacturers was not ideal and therefore a new company was formed, Ames Crosta Mills & Co Ltd.

In 1960 Ames Crosta Mills were taken over by Woodall-Duckham Ltd but they continued to trade aas before without any change in personnel. In 1973 Woodall-Duckham themselves were taken over by Babcock and Wilcox, and the name of the company was changed to Ames Crosta Babcock Ltd.