J. L. Eve Construction
J. L. Eve Construction was a civil engineering company from south London.
History
It was formed on 8 February 1930[1] by John Leonard Eve (3 February 1887 - 25 June 1954)[2] from Aveley in Essex. In 1924 he was appointed as the Chief Engineer for the river crossings of the Scottish area of the Central Electricity Board (CEB, which existed from 1926 to 1947). He worked with Robert Chandler-Brown. The CEGB came into existence in 1957. J.L. Eve left a son and a daughter.
Chain Home and National Grid
In the 1930s it built steel-lattice towers for the new National Grid and for the Chain Home transmitters. The electrical cable was often supplied by Pirelli UK of Eastleigh in Hampshire (now Prysmian Group).
Ownership
From 1982 to 1988 it was known as Eve Construction. It would later be known as Eve Group plc from April 1988, then Eve Group Ltd and Babcock Networks Ltd from 2004. It was bought by the Peterhouse Group plc in January 2000.
Babcock Networks, its successor, is situated off the M1 at Sherwood Park at Annesley, next to E.ON UK; its training base is at the former RAF Newton in Nottinghamshire.
Sponsorship
From 1982 to 2000, it sponsored the Surrey Championship (cricket), being replaced by Castle Lager.
Structure
It was based at Minster House on Plough Lane in Tooting. It was based south of Summerstown on the B235, north of Haydons Road railway station (on the A218).
Divisions
Later divisions of Eve Group were:
- Eve Arclive, formed on 18 June 1976 - electrical contracting, later it became Eve Power
- Trakway, now known as Eve Trakway and based in Bramley Vale and Doe Lea in Ault Hucknall near Glapwell in Derbyshire off the A617, east of the Heath Interchange M1 junction 29, and supplies crowd control barriers and temporary fencing. It is owned by Ashtead Group, who trade as A-Plant. In 2002 Eve Trakway built the Super Fortress security fence for the Glastonbury Festival. Eve Construction Trakway was at Lower Heyford, then moved to Sutton-in-Ashfield in the 1970s.
- Eve Telecom
Eve Transcom, comprised
- Eve Transmission - carried out construction and repair of transmission lines for the National Grid
- Eve Cellular - in late 1999, it had built over 7,000 mobile phone base stations throughout the 1990s
- Eve Engineering Design Services
- Eve Structures
Products
It built structural steel fabricated buildings or structures.
- The original Emley Moor steel-tube mast, which collapsed on 19 March 1969.[3]
- Aust Severn Powerline Crossing (488 ft tall) - the longest powerline crossing in the United Kingdom at 1700m (5,310 ft) between towers (built around 1955)[4]
- Bilsdale transmitting station on the North York Moors
- Electrical substations
Powerlines
- 275kV line from Beauly to Kintore, Aberdeenshire in 1960, for the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board[5]
- Llantarnam to Crumlin[6]
See also
- Bierrum, (Danish) builder of Britain's cooling towers
- Powerline river crossings in the United Kingdom
- Category:Telecommunications infrastructure
References
- ↑ Companies House
- ↑ John Leonard Eve
- ↑ MB21 Emley Moor
- ↑ Highways and Bridges and Engineering Works, Volume 23, 1955
- ↑ The Electrical Journal Vol 164, 1960
- ↑ The Engineer, Vol 195, 1953
