C. M. Hesford & Co.

The business was founded in 1903 by Charles Martin Hesford on Market Row, Ormskirk (Grace's Guide gives 1902) and has remained a family concern. In 1914 it was listed as agricultural engineers and farmers' implement and machinery dealers, also selling farmers' requisites, cycles and hardware, with seven employees; by 1920 it was producing the Little Giant petrol engine and sold stationary engines under its own name. C.M. Hesford & Company Limited was incorporated on 19 December 1930.

The firm's reputation rests on winches. A Forestry Commission Mechanical Development Committee report of 1958 assessed the Hesford heavy linkage winch, mounted on a tractor's three-point linkage and driven by the PTO shaft, and praised the ease with which it could be mounted and dismounted; Hesford winches were a common fitting on Fordson Major and Field Marshall tractors. For the Land Rover the company offered the Hesford Trailer Winch, 'as approved by the Rover Co. Ltd': a quickly attached two-wheeled trailer winch that would pull up to 10,000 lb and carry over 250 feet of 5/8 in wire rope, driven from the vehicle's rear power take-off, with an anchor that folded for transport. The leaflet gives the address simply as Ormskirk, Lancs, telegrams 'Hesford, Ormskirk'.

The company moved to its present Moorgate premises in 1978 and in 1983 Martin Hesford, the founder's grandson, opened a retail shop; it now trades as Hesfords DIY, selling hardware, tools and Calor, Air Products and Hobbyweld gases, and was among the first suppliers of Calor butane and propane in the north-west. The limited company remains active with Companies House, registered at Moorgate, Ormskirk.