Spitfire flypast echoes wartime heritage of former Quantel headquarters in Newbury

A crowd gathered to watch a Spitfire flypast at the former Quantel building in Newbury last weekend.

The flypast, held on Sunday afternoon (August 25), was arranged as a birthday present for Adrian Wilson, a former Paintbox operator at Quantel.

The Paintbox revolutionised digital art and design when it was introduced in 1981.

The digital special effects systems manufacturer and supplier ran for nearly 50 years until its Newbury headquarters in Turnpike Road were shut in 2023.

But many Newburians still remember working at the factory, as its ex-director or research, Paul Kellar, explains: “There is an awful lot of people who worked there who remember it all these years later.

“My son worked there for a while.”

Mr Kellar joined Quantel in the 1970s and retired in 2005, with at least 33 patents in his name.

He was also a leading member of the Bombe Restoration Project at Bletchley Park, which created an exact working replica of Alan Turing’s famous codebreaking machine used in the Second World War.

Quantel sponsored the project.

But the recent Spitfire flypast is not the first.

“In 1995, Quantel won its eighth Queen's Award for Technological Achievement for a digital system called Henry,” added Mr Kellar.

“We had arranged a flypast of a Spitfire.

“Because the machine [Henry] was sold everywhere, but particularly in Europe, we invited many European customers over to attend.”

A dinner reception was hosted at Highclere Castle the previous evening.

Mr Kellar continued: “We all gathered out in the car park.

“As it happens, I was surrounded by German customers.

“It was a huge success, and the Germans loved it to.”

Both Spitfire flypasts echo the site’s origins as a Vickers-Armstrong factory, built in the mid-1940s to support the war effort building Spitfires.

The Ministry of Defence built the factory for Vickers-Armstrong after the company was evacuated from Southampton.

When it first arrived in Newbury, it had three sites at West Mills, Bartholomew Street and in Northbrook Street.

Employees who had moved from Southampton were housed in pre-fabs in Charter Road and Rupert Road in Newbury.

Air raid shelters were also built along the bank behind the building.

These were demolished in 1980 when work started on transforming the building for Quantel to move in.