Bunns Lane Works - A history

Bunns Lane Works was originally part of the Goldbeaters Farm. Its original industrial use was as a shunting yard for the railway station at The Hale, Mill Hill. Until the 1970s remnants of the track could still be seen in what is now the industrial complex behind the Works.

By the 1950s the Works was a thriving industrial estate. Over the years many small businesses flourished including a boat builder, stonemason, crash repairers, a staircase manufacturers, a furniture factory and a coffee roaster.

In the late 1970s an enterprising young man was able to rent the caretaker’s cottage as a music studio. This has now grown into Mill Hill Music Complex, northwest London’s premier music rehearsal venue.

In the 1980s the old railway bridge over the junction between Bunns Lane and Flower Lane was demolished. The area behind the Works which had been used for parking was fenced off and the Mill Hill Industrial Estate was built. As time progressed the furniture factory closed but the coffee factory lived on.

The smell of roasting coffee would drift over the area, mingling with the smells of engine oil and spray paint from the vehicle repairers. Today the coffee factory has gone too, but if you ask Laurie nicely he may give you a cup of his special Welders Blend custom coffee.

There is still a crash repairer on the site of MacMetals, along with the car wash, the music complex and a number of small businesses. Self Containered has been providing container self storage for business on the site since 2004. We aim to work with your business to provide a flexible self storage solution for you at a reasonable cost. As a small business ourselves we will treat you as a human being not just an account number and will do our best to support your storage needs.

Times change but the atmosphere of the Works is unchanging, a place for hard working people to grow their businesses.