Isn’t this building beautiful? It is a listed building on one of London’s busiest arterial roads, the A40. Anyone travelling by road from Central London to Oxford by road will pass this if they go by the obvious route.

When I first moved to this district in the mid-70s, the building was the Hoover factory, where they made washing machines (I think). Many of my school friends went there to work as apprentices in one field or another. If you passed the factory on a sunny day, the work force would all be sitting eating their lunch on the lawn outside the front of the building.

Hoover stopped making things here and moved their production to South Wales…..and now the Far East. The Hoover Factory became vacant. It’s now a supermarket and also houses offices for one of the tobacco barons.

I just love this place - it's got the lot - staggering beauty (strange in a washing machine factory), presence, history and a strong link to my own past. Every time I went in and out of London in my car, I went past it and smiled. It symbolised coming 'home' as it is just five miles from where I spent a good chunk of my teens.

I’ve learned this year that our industrial architectural heritage is being lost rapidly. The Cornish Mining Industry proves that. I’ve also learned that it depends where you are and how visible to a degree. If not, then why is this building listed (not that I'm complaining about this being listed, I'm more worried that SC isn't) when South Caradon Mine isn’t?