The EMI complex in Hayes, Hillingdon stands as one of Britain's most consequential industrial sites. From its factory floors emerged technologies that shaped global entertainment and medicine: the first electronic television system, stereophonic sound, and the vinyl records that defined the 1960s.
From Gramophones to Global Innovation
The story begins on 9 February 1907, when groundbreaking occurred for what would become the EMI factory on Blyth Road. Dame Nellie Melba performed the ceremonial duties, and by 1911 the Cabinet Building had opened following a cornerstone-laying by Italian soprano Luisa Tetrazzini. The head office building followed in 1912, designed by the architectural partnership of Wallis, Gilbert and Partners.
The factory initially produced gramophones and shellac records. By 1929, the site covered 58 acres and employed 7,500 people. Production of vinyl microgroove records began in 1952. The 1960s marked the peak: the factory sprawled across 150 acres with 14,000 workers manufacturing records for The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Cliff Richard, and Pink Floyd. The words "Hayes, Middlesex" appeared on the reverse of countless albums pressed at the site.
The Birth of Electronic Television
In 1934, Sir Isaac Shoenberg led an EMI research team that developed the Marconi-EMI system, the first fully electronic television system used in regular broadcasting. The BBC launched its Television Service from Alexandra Palace on 2 November 1936 using this 405-line system. The Emitron camera tube, developed by EMI engineers, was refined into the Super-Emitron and CPS Emitron variants, which proved 10 to 15 times more sensitive than earlier designs.
The Baird mechanical television system was abandoned in January 1937 in favour of the all-electronic Marconi-EMI approach. The 405-line standard remained in use until 1985. EMI followed this success with the EMI 2001 colour television camera, which dominated British broadcasting from the late 1960s until July 1991, when the last programme recorded with these cameras, "EastEnders," concluded at BBC Elstree Centre.
Stereo Sound and the Blumlein Legacy
Perhaps Hayes's most enduring contribution came from Alan Dower Blumlein, who invented stereophonic sound in 1931. Working at EMI's Central Research Laboratories in Hayes, Blumlein filed his patent on 14 December 1931; it was accepted on 14 June 1933 as UK patent number 394,325. His invention covered coincident microphone pairs (now known as the "Blumlein pair"), recording two channels in a single groove, and matrixing between left and right signals.
Blumlein recorded Mozart's "Jupiter Symphony" at Abbey Road Studios in 1934 using his vertical-lateral technique. His test films, including "Trains at Hayes Station" (1935), remain in the Hayes EMI archive. Blumlein received 128 patents during his career. The Recording Academy posthumously awarded him the Technical Grammy Award in 2017 for the invention of stereo. He died in a plane crash on 7 June 1942 while testing H2S radar equipment.
Medical Miracles and Military Innovation
The Hayes laboratories also pioneered medical imaging. Sir Godfrey Hounsfield joined EMI in 1949 and developed the first CT scanner at the Central Research Laboratories. On 1 October 1971, CT scanning entered medical practice with a successful scan on a cerebral cyst patient at Atkinson Morley Hospital in Wimbledon. Hounsfield shared the 1979 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for this achievement. The Hounsfield scale, measured in Hounsfield units, remains the standard for quantifying radiodensity in CT scans.
During the Second World War, the factory produced munitions and domestic radio receivers. On 7 July 1944, a V-1 flying bomb struck the factory, killing 37 employees. The site also developed H2S airborne radar equipment; Blumlein's line type pulse modulator proved crucial to high-powered pulse radar systems.
The Old Vinyl Factory Today
Production shifted within Hayes in the 1970s, and the original site eventually fell silent. In April 2011, a joint venture purchased the 17-acre site and renamed it "The Old Vinyl Factory." A £250 million redevelopment is underway, featuring 500 flats, offices, restaurants, and a cinema. The Global Academy secondary school opened in 2016.
Enterprise House, the 1912 head office building on Blyth Road, is Grade II listed as the first known work of engineer-architect Evan Owen Williams. The Gatefold Building, completed in late 2016, takes its name from the gatefold sleeves of vinyl records. The EMI archives and early reinforced concrete factory buildings remain as tangible links to the site's extraordinary past.
The gold disc installation in Hayes town centre commemorates the 50th anniversary of The Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," manufactured at the factory in 1967. It stands as a reminder that some of the 20th century's most significant cultural and technological achievements emerged from a Middlesex factory town.