Hidden workshop in Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter reveals Victorian metal working process
ITV Central reporter Mark Gough takes us back in time to a workshop which looks the same now as it did in Victorian times.
A hidden workshop in Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter has revealed the secrets of a metal working processes that date back to the Victorian era.
Neil Grant's company makes cufflinks and badges, hammering them out using heavy metal stamps.
The process hasn't changed in more than hundred years - but the business is still going strong.
During the industrial revolution, Birmingham became known as the city of a thousand trades, with much of it on display in the jewellery quarter.
And those trades are still being carried on in this workshop, which looks as it did in the late 1800s. The sights and sounds unchanged for more than a hundred years.
Olly and Bob who work in the factory, are busy making medals, badges and cufflinks. The shelves on the left contain hundreds of design stamps, black gold dyes, a piece of metal. This is silver is put on the dye.
120 tons of pressure later, and the cufflinks and badges take shape.
The weights themselves are too heavy to lift singlehandedly without a bit of help from an old electric pulley system, which takes some of the strain.
But when it drops, gravity takes over and multiplies the weight several times over.