Bower Green Founded
Further Expansion
Survival of the Firm
New Markets - Investments & innovation
Forth Generation
The Present Day
Staying with our Roots
Expansion of Storage Facilities
The name Bower Green is a now well known one in Bradford. The warehousing and transport company has established a place for itself in Bradford’s economy which is unrivaled in the city.
Bower Green Warehousing Ltd was established as long ago as 1953 as a warehousing company serving the wool and textile community, and it’s still a family concern.
The business was founded on 8th July 1953 by Donald Pattison who had previously been a wool sorter. A keen young entrepreneur Donald would have started out for himself rather earlier but for call up into the forces. We will be celebrating 65 years of business in 2018.
The new business began in Trafalgar Street where Donald began
wool .sorting on commission and warehousing; he would later be helped by his sons Michael and Ian who would develop the warehousing, shipping, forwarding and transport aspects of the company.
In the 1950s however cranes, hand carts and lots of manual labour were then still the order of the day, unlike today when skilled fork lift truck drivers and HGV drivers are used alongside computers and calculators.
The still small firm stayed at Trafalgar Street for five years before moving to Buttershaw Mills where it would remain based for the next ten years until it made a move to Green Hill Mills at Laisterdyke before transferring its operations to the firm’s present premises in Bradford’s Dryden Street.
For years there was no continuity of business, there were always ups and downs in the trade cycle which inevitably made life immensely difficult for the Pattisons as they struggled to develop their business against an evermore hostile economic background in the textile industry.
Life was certainly not easy, but as the saying goes ‘when the going gets tough the tough get going’.
Through the ensuing decades the Pattison family worked to ensure that their firm survived where many others fell by the wayside.
Endless hours of work, investment and innovation, seeding new markets and new opportunities would ensure that what had begun as a tiny undertaking would slowly but steadily grow, surviving the successive waves of boom and bust.
Today Bower Green uses fully computerised systems to keep track of every consignment, every pallet stored and every piece of documentation. A modern well maintained fleet of vehicles and trailers collect and deliver to every part of Britain and Europe.
Growing by the day, the month, the year, Bower Green offers daily distribution throughout the UK and Scotland. We have a transport fleet ranging from 7,5 tonne rigid s to 44 tonne articulated lorries, including tautliners and flatbed trailers.
Bower Green still maintain their roots within the wool industry, offering a bonded/ non bonded storage facility and transport distribution for the many UK wool companies.
The company are not just limited to the wool industry, we are also specialists in worldwide import and export services, by sea freight, airfreight, road haulage and courier.
We work closely with our worldwide agents operating with 240 offices in 101 countries, where we have built up a good working relationship with all our partners across the globe and our customers can be rest assured that Bower Green are in complete control of their cargo from start to finish.
Our shipping department based at the Head office on Dryden Street, Bradford are led by members of the Institute of Freight Forwarders. Our staff are always willing to assist with letters of credit and all aspects of documentation, arranging marine insurance as well as providing customs clearance and bonded storage facilities.
With four warehouses within the Bradford/Halifax districts all within minutes of the motorway network, Bower Green can offer a quarter of a million square feet of warehousing space whilst a progressive management team makes certain that every aspect of the company’s operation runs at maximum efficiency, With our
satellite office in Felixstowe, and ever expanding fleet of vehicles, the company have more than 50 people working in their separate divisions, each with the same responsibility to Bower Green customers: courtesy, helpfulness, politeness and 100 per cent effort.
The company has been built up on the understanding that a cost effective, personal service is vital to ensure that customers do return to Bower Green time and time again.