at Yardley Road. Hobmoor Road provides a northern boundary whilst the Birmingham and Warwick Junction Branch of the Grand Union Canal, running behind Ammington and Speedwell Roads, provides a boundary to the south. Industry Webster Horsfall James Horsfall, a wire drawer from Digbeth invented high tensile steel wire. He moved to Hay Mill, a disused blade and sword factory at a water mill on the River Cole, rebuilding it as a steam-driven mill. The mill originally belonged to Hay Hall in Tyseley. In 1855, his company merged with Joseph Webster's of Penn Mill, Sutton Coldfield. Webster was a major manufacturer and exporter of piano wire to Europe. In 1853, Horsfall had patented a heat treatment process which strengthened the wire. This led to improved piano wire (giving a near monopoly), wire for making needles in Redditch, fishhooks, and umbrella frames. The firm made the armoured wire for first successful transatlantic telegraph cable in 1866, using 30,000 miles of wire (1,600 tons), made by 250 workers over 11 months. The strengthened wire also made possible the construction of aeroplanes and automobiles. The company today also makes springs. Latch and Batchelor Founded by Arthur Latch, Telford Clarence Batchelor and Henry Herbert Horsfall to develop Batchelor's patent of Locked Coil Wire Rope and Flattened Strand, it was formed in 1884 on part of the Hay Mills site owned at that time by Webster and Horsfall Ltd. Due to its smooth outer layer Locked Coil became increasing popular with its use in aerial ropeways and its unexpected yet excellent non-spinning properties and high breaking-strength-to-weight ratio were recognised by the mining industry and adopted worldwide. Locked Coil development continued with the advent of the half-lock Colliery Guide ropes and more use being made of galvanised wires. The company was one of the first to come under direct Government control in both World Wars. In the 1914–18 war they were the sole manufacturer of shell fuse spring wire, for example, producing 80,260 miles, along with anti-submarine netting, mine, aircraft and balloon cables. The works did not fare so well in the 1939–45 conflict, receiving several direct hits during air raids. The main crane in the rope mill still shudders halfway down the shop caused by slight track misalignment from this time. The virtual extinction of Britain's core manufacturing industries and mining caused a re-focus our the entire manufacturing operation at Hay Mills in the 1980s, and