History Of Asgard Storage
Where it all started for Asgard
By Brook Chalmers 2012
Walk into our factory on Leeds Road in Bradford, and you're standing in a piece of Yorkshire history. This building has been serving the local community for over a century, just in very different ways.
Back in the early 1900s, this was the Thornbury tram depot, a bustling hub for Bradford Corporation Tramways. Trams would rumble in and out, connecting Leeds Road to the suburbs, carrying thousands of passengers every day. It was proper Victorian industrial engineering, and built to last.
As Bradford's tram system declined (like most cities in the mid-20th century), the depot adapted to house buses instead. The building kept working, kept serving the city, just in a different form.
A new chapter begins
Fast forward to 1988. Flexiform, an office furniture manufacturer, was looking to expand. They saw potential in these old tram sheds - solid Victorian architecture, plenty of space, and that distinctive industrial character that you just can't replicate in a modern unit.
The historic structure was repurposed for manufacturing, blending Victorian industrial design with modern factory needs. And that's where our story really begins.
The Parker Box - Asgard is conceived...
In the early 2000s, Ray Parker, Factory Manager at Flexiform, was on holiday at the coast in his static caravan. He noticed other caravan owners on the site building makeshift storage units out of wood. They looked awful and were something of a fire risk.
Ray pulled out a sketch pad and started designing. With 40 years of manufacturing experience and deep knowledge of sheet steel manufacturing, he created the prototype - the Parker Box, named after its creator.
These new storage boxes blended in with the caravans in both colour and style. They were made from sheet steel, with the plan to send them out for hot-dip galvanising to protect them from the elements.
"Unfortunately, we hadn't allowed for the hot dipping, which totally distorted the panels. That was when we decided to manufacture them from pre-galvanised steel and the first prototypes were made," Ray explains.
Above: One of the earliest models of Asgard sheds
Building the range
Flexiform knew we needed more than one model to create a credible product range. So we designed and made five products, which we had tested for strength and security.
After several failures and redesigns (that's how you learn), we got our Loss Prevention certification. The storage shed range had grown enough to warrant its own identity.
Asgard is born - 2003
In 2003, we launched the new Asgard brand at the Chelsea Flower Show. The range was well received, and Asgard became its own entity - a sister company to Flexiform.
Not smooth sailing:
No, Asgard did not explode onto the market... it was a slow burn, a really slow burn to begin with; in fact, it was pretty poor. The brand only really started to gather pace when Andy Heath (who at the time was a designer for Flexiform) took a passing interest in Asgard as he was a crazy cyclist and thought the addition of a caravan shed would be a good bike shed.
"No, I didn't invent Asgard; it was already a thing. I would never make such a claim; I did kick it up the bum it needed, though. I was a club cyclist and saw the potential to make a caravan shed a bike shed, so that's what I did. I pinched a unit, took it home, filled it full of bikes, took some pictures, and there you have it. A new product. At the time, I was young and eager, so I was teaching myself to write websites, and I have always had a keen interest in Photography. These elements came together (with a friend who owned a website company) to make an Asgard website- it was crude, but wow, it worked. That was it really; I bought more bikes, so I needed bigger bike sheds. I talked the MD into being a model (he didn't have the legs for it though!) so then Chris Raby, the Asgard shed legend, designed bigger and better sheds. I managed to get Elinor Barker from Team GB on camera with one of our sheds; from there, most of Team GB joined in. Then I got calls from celebrities, TV shows, all sorts. 15-odd years later, we have a top-ranking website (still my design!), incredible SEO strength, a PPC campaign written in 2015 which smashed all industry benchmarks, and an ever-expanding product range". Andy Heath - Sales & Marketing Director
We now have a commercial team led by Helen Finnigan, who has even more years at Flexiform than me!! And, like me, has migrated from Office Furniture to Asgard, and brings so much knowledge with her - Finally, Chris Raby has come with us, with 25 years of metalwork experience - it really is the perfect team. 3 of us cover all bases of a business; I think this is unique for any business - 3 people with such experience, that work so well together, idea, design, manufacture, marketing, pricing, selling". Andy Heath
The Asgard name?
When you hear Asgard, you probably think of Thor and the Marvel films. That's exactly where we got the inspiration from - though we were thinking more about Norse mythology than Chris Hemsworth!
"We wanted a name that portrayed strength and security, qualities embedded in all our products. We went through names representing those qualities and quickly found that many related to Vikings, Greeks, or Romans were already taken. Then we found it - Asgard, the fortress home of the Norse Gods. What better sums up secure storage than a fortress?" - Asgard Marketing
Growing with customer feedback
With every event and show, people asked us to make specials. During the Calor Gas Roadshow, someone asked for boxes specifically for gas bottles. These special requests gradually became part of the standard range.
That's how we've always worked - listening to what people actually need, then designing and manufacturing solutions in-house with our own engineering team. Some of that team have been here from the very start.
The building today
In 2012, part of the original tram sheds was demolished, but the remaining section continues to serve as our factory. We're still here on Leeds Road, still manufacturing in Bradford, maintaining that tangible link to the city's industrial heritage.
From housing trams in the early 1900s to manufacturing secure steel storage in the 2020s - the building's still doing what it's always done: serving the community with quality Yorkshire engineering.
Over the past twenty years, Asgard has grown into an industry-leading storage company with affiliations with Team GB and various industry bodies. We continue to design new products and improve existing ones, ensuring we provide the strongest, most secure steel storage on the market.
All from a factory that once housed Bradford's trams. Not bad for a building that's over a century old.
Read Andy Heaths Article Here >
Asgard sheds - A History of Asgard Sheds here >
