The 125th anniversary of The Hills Group has been given the royal treatment, with the Lord Lieutenant of Wiltshire visiting the company to mark the occasion.
Dame Sarah Troughton, representing King Charles III, took a tour of several of the Hills Group’s sites, including locations in Lower Compton near Calne, South Cerney, and Swindon.
“My tour of Hills and its different and diverse businesses has been a fascinating experience. As a lay person, I was intrigued to discover what really happens to our rubbish — something most of us never think about and watching the sorting process at the Materials Recovery Facility in Lower Compton was mesmerising,” Troughton said.
“We also visited the beautiful Hills Homes development at High Penn Park in Calne and The Paddocks in Blunsdon. I was particularly interested to see the washing plant at Cerney Wick Quarry, learning how materials are extracted and how quarry restoration partnerships make such a positive impact. My sincere thanks to Mike Hill and everyone at the company for such an informative and inspiring visit.”
The tour got underway at the Materials Recovery Facility at Sands Farm in Lower Compton which was opened by the company in March 2020. In its current form, the site sorts and separates 52,000 tonnes of dry mixed recycling annually.
Alongside Hills Group chairman Mike Hill, Troughton looked at the Lower Compton concrete site, operated by Hills Quarry Products, and the plant operations and aggregates bagging process at Cerney Wick Quarry in South Cerney. She also learned about Hills Quarry Products’ long-standing restoration partnerships with the Cotswold Lakes Trust and Wiltshire Wildlife Trust.
The tour captured just how far the company has grown since it was started by a 28-year-old Edward Hill in 1900.
“It was an honour to accompany the Lord Lieutenant of Wiltshire, Dame Sarah Troughton, on a tour of some of our sites yesterday, in recognition or the Company’s 125th anniversary since my great-grandfather Edward opened his first brickworks in Morris Street in Swindon,” Mike Hill said.
“Dame Sarah fully engaged with all the staff she met and found the trip truly enlightening. To achieve this milestone and host the King’s representative in the county makes me very proud and is due to the dedication of my forebears and many thousands of loyal employees since Edward first fired up his kiln.”
