Hockley Abbey was an early brand name for John Rabone.
The name came from a large house built near Birmingham in the late 1700s to resemble a Gothic ruin. To further the illusion of age, the builder named it Hockley Abbey. By 1870 it was surrounded by urban sprawl so was demolished. John Rabone set up his factory on the site, and called it the Hockley Abbey Works, making tools, precision rules and later spirit levels, thermometers and barometers. The company remained in the family’s hands until 1963 when it merged with Chesterman’s of Sheffield. It was taken over by Stanley Tools in 1990 and the factory in Whitmore Street closed in 2008.
Now further glance your eye beyond the town,
Where purple Heaths appear, or dusky brown,
Close by yon Lake’s pellucid stream, behold
A Gothic Pile, which seems some cent’ries old,
Vulcanic Fancy there display’d her taste,
And rear’d the fabric on the barren waste;
The Forge materials for the work provides,
Rude cinders clothe the front - compose the sides.
Where bogs and brakes, and marshy fens were seen,
We now behold a turf-enamel’d green;
It’s hoary sage, withdrawn from toil and care,
Both ease and solitude possesses there;
The moss-clad turrets, ivy-clasp’d, o’er grown,
Look as if Peace had mark’d the spot her own.
James Bissett 1800
A Poetic Survey round Birmingham
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