New Street Works, Grade II listed industrial building in Chelmsford, England
New Street Works is an Edwardian factory building on New Street in Chelmsford, England, listed as a Grade II protected structure. It rises over multiple floors with a symmetrical facade, large windows arranged in regular rows, and decorative details that were common in early industrial construction of that era.
The building went up in 1912 as the first factory in the world built specifically for radio manufacturing, completed in 17 weeks. It was commissioned by the Marconi Company, which had chosen Chelmsford as its base for developing wireless technology.
The building sits on a street where most people pass without knowing what happened inside its walls. The large windows and orderly facade reflect a time when factories were built to look serious and permanent, not hidden away on the outskirts of town.
The building is easy to spot from New Street and can be seen clearly from the pavement without needing to enter. It helps to step back a little to take in the full width of the facade and notice how the windows are arranged across the floors.
In 1920, radio signals sent from this factory were picked up by listeners in Europe and Canada, making it one of the earliest long-distance broadcasts ever recorded. At the time, this showed that wireless signals could travel far beyond what most people had believed possible.
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