Category: Trade: Fruit Ripening

Death Of The Former Manager Of The Geest Banana Depot, Warminster

Wednesday 18th September 2024

Raymond John Hilborne, OBE, passed away peacefully at the Royal Hampshire County Hospital, Winchester, aged 101, on Saturday 7th September 2024. Predeceased by his parents Reginal John and Nellie Victoria, his brother Maurice; and survived by his brother Leonard. Beloved husband to Muriel for 74 years and cherished father to Christine, Janet and Roger (Cleone). Much loved granddad to Clare, Laura, Lauren (Joe), and Victoria (Domenic), great granddad to Freddie and Matilda.

Ray of Fair Oak, Hampshire, will be lovingly remembered by family, friends and caregivers. Ray was the long-standing Manager of the Geest Banana Depot at Copheap Lane, Warminster, having joined the company in the late 1950s, then later moving to Spalding to hold senior roles within the company, predominantly within the banana sector, until his retirement in 1989.

Family and friends are invited to the funeral service at Wessex Vale Crematorium, Hedge End, Southampton on Friday 4th October 2024, at 1.00 pm, followed by a reception, In lieu of flowers, Ray’s family are supporting Dementia UK. Contributions can be made through A.H. Freemantle, 19 High Street, Botley, SO30 2EA. Telephone 01489 876546.

Former Geest Factory Site, Warminster, To Become A Residential Area

Friday 27th October 1989

“Former commercial sites in Warminster awaiting change include Geest  . . . which now looks as though it will become a residential area.” *

~ stated by Danny Howell in a lecture “Changing Faces Of Warminster” which he gave at the Athenaeum, Warminster, during October 1989.

* Hillbourne Close.

Boreham WI, Warminster ~ Talk On Bananas By David Dodge And Martin Randall (Employees Of Geest Industries Ltd.)

At the November 1984 meeting of Boreham Women’s Institute, Mr. David Dodge and Mr. Martin Randall from Geest Industries (Copheap Lane, Warminster) gave a very interesting talk and showed a film about the production of bananas. They stated that all the bananas sold by Geest came from the Windward Islands in the Caribbean. The fruit was picked green and kept at a temperature of 55 degrees Fahrenheit in refrigerated ships for the 12 day journey to this country. When the bananas arrived at the ripening rooms the temperature was gradually raised, which turned them yellow. This took about six days; they were then all weighed, priced and sent to the shops.

“Banana Factory” At Copheap Lane, Warminster, Enlarged And Complete With Railway Sidings

Wilfred Middlebrook, in his newspaper serialisation The Changing Face Of Warminster, published in 1971, noted:

Industry returned to Copheap Lane [Warminster] again in 1958 with the erection of a “banana factory,” – Geest Industries Ltd. Since that time the fruit processing and packing factory has been enlarged to eight mammoth bays, complete with special railway sidings to deal with banana trains direct from Barry Docks.

The Fruit Ripening, Packaging And Distribution Warehouse Of Geest Industries Ltd. (“The Banana Factory”), Copheap Lane, Warminster, 1965

The fruit ripening, packaging and distribution
warehouse of Geest Industries Ltd.
(usually referred to locally as “the banana factory”)
at Copheap Lane, Warminster.
The photograph was taken in 1965.

Geest Industries Ltd., Banana Factory At Warminster

Wilfred Middlebrook in his newspaper serialisation ‘Highways And Byways In Warminster’ noted:

“Within the past year or so, a ‘banana factory’ has been erected by Van Geest Industries Ltd., [at Copheap Lane, Warminster] to process fruit. New [railway] sidings have been built to the building on land between Portway and the footpath leading up to Copheap from the railway.”

This part of the serialisation was published in the Wiltshire Times, Friday 22nd April 1960.