Exploring the History of Springs by
Davies Springs

We are Davies Springs, a family-owned and run manufacturing company, based in Redditch in Worcestershire. We have been supplying Sitting Spiritually, with our British made springs for their swing seats and daybeds for 15 years now, and we were delighted when they asked us to write this guest blog.

A spring is a mechanical device, formed from an elastic material, which changes shape in response to an external force and returns to its original shape when that force is removed. Precision coiled springs appeared early in the 15th Century in door locks, with the first spring powered clocks appearing later in the century. In 1493 Leonardo Da Vinci built the first spring into a pistol, making it possible for the pistol to be shot with just one hand. Springs are used in almost every type of machinery, and have been used in everything from shoes to trampolines. They have helped to make the car industry and flight what it is today.

Redditch has a long and proud history of mass producing springs stretching back over 100 years. The spring industry in Redditch started as an off-shoot of the needle and fishing hooks industries, who were major consumers of wire. Today, whilst the other two industries have diminished in importance, Redditch remains the centre for spring manufacturing in the UK. Davies Springs have been a part of this history since 1991.

When Redditch Council proposed a plan in 2010 to celebrate the achievements of the spring industry in Redditch, Davies Springs were keen to become involved in helping to shape the plans. All companies, with connections to the spring industry, were invited to a meeting to discuss the commissioning of a statue. Mike felt very strongly that springs should be represented in the town, as there were already two pieces of art celebrating the needle industry as well as the museum. Around 30 companies attended but only 2 agreed to be on a steering group with the council (Davies Springs being one of them). Art students at the local college were asked to design models and the steering group then chose the best three. The local community were then invited to vote for the winner. The council then commissioned the artist Tim Tolkien (the grandson of JR Tolkien who wrote The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit) to make the piece.

This whole process took over 7 years. The final part of the commissioning was to decide on a name for the art work. The steering group came up with several suggestions but it was the suggestion put forward by Mike Davies that was agreed upon. The statue, named SPRINGS ETERNAL, is now situated in front of the town hall.

In 2014, we were invited to become part of the celebrations of the 50th Anniversary of Redditch becoming a New Town. We have the square on the Redditch Monopoly board where our factory was located at the time, as well as a playing card directing you to come to Davies Springs to get your garage door spring replaced. We have since moved to bigger and better premises. The Monopoly game now serves as not only a part of the town’s history, but a piece of our own as well.

At Davies Springs our technical competence, capability and knowhow enables us to provide engineered solutions for our customers, but it is our passion and dedication for what we do that creates long-term relationships with our customers. Our aim is to exceed customers’ expectations in every aspect of our business.

We are proud to have been awarded a certificate of excellence, for maintaining a gold classification for 3 consecutive months, from one of our global customers. Gold classification means being 100% correct on all aspects of supply. As you can imagine this is quite an achievement, so much so that to this day we are their only supplier to have been awarded this honour. One of our smaller customers even went to the trouble of making and sending us a wooden “Davies Springs” plaque to thank us for the way we looked after him.

We manufacture a wide variety of springs, gas struts and wire forms, both as standard stock springs and bespoke to individual requirements, in an array of materials for use in an abundance of applications (everything from watches, motorbikes, swings and art work – our springs have even been on a TV game show!)

Also, because we manufacture, we can be flexible on order quantities (from 1 to 100,000+) and delivery targets. We still manufacture small quantities and more complex springs by hand, but have the modern machinery for larger quantities of springs.

Many thanks to Mel Davies of Davies Springs

If you would like to find out more please contact Davies Springs on 01527 500710 or email sales@daviessprings.co.uk

daviespsrings.co.uk

If you would like to contribute a blog, please contact Siobhan at siobhan@sittingspiritually.co.uk