History
Charles James Thorne or C J as he was known, was born in 1901 and had a reputation as being something of a wheeler dealer even from an early age. He was never really the model employee, moving from job to job and never comfortable working for someone else. This culminated in him purchasing a two lorry haulage firm operating from rented premises in Eastbourne in 1939, which was the foundation stone of what has become a successful civil engineering Company.
He quickly built up the business as a maintenance depot and acquired various pieces of plant and equipment that enabled him to establish the earth moving side of the business. The local authorities were awarding contracts at that time for such things as school playing fields, and the Company soon established a reputation for having skilled plant operators and equipment such as bulldozers and excavators.
Whilst this side of the business was being expanded, C J continued wheeling and dealing. One such venture was with someone from Ealing Studios that resulted in him constructing replicas of the snow sledges used by Scott of the Antarctic in 1912 for a film to be made with John Mills. The success of this led to the Company supplying much of the military equipment for films such as Ice Cold in Alex, the Heroes of Telemark and Dunkirk.
In the late 1940's the old brick yard at Union Point was purchased and offices and a workshop built from where the Company has operated since.