Ingersoll, Clerkenwell

This building situated on St John street & Skinner street used to be the factory of the watch makers Ingersoll.

The factory was built during the 1930s by an architect Stanley Waghorn (the brother of Gilbert Waghorn, who designed several factories around Barking and Stratford) modified slightly around the edge of the building on the St John Street façade to incorporate the green and off-white mosaic with the logo of Ingersoll at the top of the building.

Ingersoll Watch Company began in New York City in 1882 by brothers Robert and Charles Ingersoll. The first Ingersoll watches, 'Universal', were introduced in 1892. These were small spring-driven clocks fitted into watchcases.

Production of Ingersoll watches in Clerkenwell stopped when the new factory of the Anglo-Celtic Watch Co. Ltd opened near Swansea, in the late 1940s. Ingersoll Ltd was one of the two shareholders of the Anglo-Celtic Watch Co. Ltd.

In the 1950s, the Clerkenwell factory was bought by Condé Nast and became the pattern factory for fashion magazine Vogue. As a result, the building is now known as Pattern House rather than the Ingersoll building. In the mid-1990s, after 60 years of industrial use, it was converted into lofts then today it is now industrialised flats.