Page 25 - link magazine

Swindon Wide

Edward Hill the founder of The Hills Group.

Workers loading the kiln at Hills’ Purton brickworks.

Hills - A family company at the

centre of Swindon life for 116 years

Back in 1900, Edward Hill set up now limited company operated 100 In a typical year, the business
the Morris Street Brickworks in goods vehicles. manages over 600,000 tonnes of
Rodbourne - and the story of The In the late 60s and early 70s waste, diverting around 60% from
Hills Group began. the company switched from landfill.
Six years later and trading long-distance haulage operations Hills’ quarrying operations and Pictured left to right: former
simply as E Hill, he acquired to waste disposal and skips for award-winning restoration work chairman, the late Robert Hill; current
three neighbouring brickworks at hire. Upon Grahame’s death in has helped transform the Cotswold chief executive Mike Hill and current
Kingshill, Badbury and Purton. 1977, his son Robert took over as Water Park from old gravel pits chairman Alan Pardoe.
The First World War was chairman of the company. Robert into both havens for wildlife and
significant as it resulted in reorganised the business in the popular leisure amenities.
diversification and the emergence 70s and 80s, ably assisted by the Hills provides millions of pounds
of the now familiar Hills fleet of current chairman Alan Pardoe, and in Landfill Communities Fund
trucks. they more than anyone shaped the grants to help preserve sites of
After the war, Edward turned modern day Hills Group. environmental importance in
his energy to digging gravel at The company is now run by partnership with Wiltshire Wildlife
South Cerney and a stone quarry at Robert’s son Mike and has more Trust and Community First.
Stratton. than 430 employees supporting The company is currently based at
By the Second World War, the three core activities: County Park on Shrivenham Road
business was trading as E Hill & • recycling and waste management having moved its headquarters in
Sons and was based at Kingshill. • quarrying of aggregates and 2014 from Marlborough, where it
Edward’s son Grahame took over ready-mixed concrete production had been based for 25 years. Hills’ distinctive red trucks are a
from his father and by 1957, the • and the building of new homes. www.hills-group.co.uk familiar sight on the roads around
Swindon and Wiltshire

swindonlink.com n June 2016 25

June 2016 Master Pages.indd 25 20/05/2016 11:59