Ford Of Britain 100: Image Of The Week - 16/52

BRENTWOOD, UNITED KINGDOM – April 20, 2011: To celebrate the centenary of Ford of Britain in 2011 the company is exploring its photo archive to reveal rarely seen images.

Ford's unique relationship with Britain and its society will be illustrated each week by specially selected pictures.

The town of Dagenham is synonymous with Ford and it is easy to forget that the town existed before the UK's favourite car company came to Britain.

With Ford Dagenham celebrating 80 years of production in 2011, this week's image is a timely reminder of how the site looked 100 years ago. Situated east of London the quiet village consisted of a few farms and a considerable area of low quality marshland that became home to the capital's waste. Recognising the potential of Dagenham, and against the advice of engineers, Henry Ford embarked on an ambitious project to reclaim the land and create the most advanced production facility ever seen.

On a 'raft' of 22,000 concrete piles, Ford Dagenham emerged to bring people and prosperity to the area. Today, it still stands tall as London's largest industrial employer and is home to Ford's leading facility on diesel engineering and production, metal stamping operations and a thriving transport hub.