Royal Arsenal
The Royal Arsenal, Woolwich carried out armaments manufacture, ammunition proofing, and explosives research for the British armed forces at a site on the south bank of the River Thames in Woolwich in south-east London, England. It was originally known as the Woolwich Warren, having begun on land previously used as a domestic warren in the grounds of a Tudor house, Tower Place. Much of the initial history of the site is linked with that of the Board of Ordnance, which purchased the Warren in the late 17th century in order to expand an earlier base at Gun Wharf in Woolwich Dockyard. Over the next two centuries, as operations grew and innovations were pursued, the site expanded massively; at the time of the First World War the Arsenal covered 1,285 acres (520 ha) and employed close to 80,000 people. Thereafter its operations were scaled down; it finally closed as a factory in 1967 and the Ministry of Defence moved out in 1994. Today the area, so long a secret enclave, is open to the public and is being redeveloped for housing and community use.
17th-18th century: The Warren
The Board of Ordnance was both a civil and a military office of State, independent of the Army, overseen by a high-ranking official, the Master-General of the Ordnance. Both branches, civil and military, were represented at the Warren; indeed there was a great deal of overlap: military officers for the most part headed up the civil departments, and civilians often worked alongside the military personnel.
The Civil Establishment
The Warren in Tower Place was established by the Board as an Ordnance Storage Depot in 1671 on a 31-acre (13 ha) site.[1] Its four main areas of activity developed as follows:
The Ordnance Store
The Board of Ordnance initially looked on the site as "a convenient place for building a storehouse for powder and other stores of war, and for room for the proof of guns". As at other Ordnance Yards the site was overseen by a Storekeeper, who was based in the old house (Tower Place). The Storekeeper not only controlled the receipt, safekeeping and issue of all the items that were stored on the site; he was also responsible (until the early 1800s) for issuing payments on the Board's behalf to all personnel. He was assisted by a Clerk of the Cheque, Clerk of the Survey and other administrative staff.
To begin with much of the Warren was preserved as open space with cannons stored in the open air and guns proved on ranges to the east. (Proof-testing was overseen at this time by the Master Gunner of England, who was also accommodated in Tower Place.) Gunpowder was stored in a converted dovecote initially; but before long specialist buildings began to appear.[2]
The Royal Laboratory
An ammunition laboratory (i.e. workshop) was set up at the Warren in 1695, overseen by the Comptroller of Fireworks. Manufacture of ammunition had previously taken place within a Great Barn on the tilt-yard at Greenwich Palace (an offshoot of the royal armoury there); but in 1695 construction of Greenwich Hospital began on the palace site, so the laboratory was relocated downstream at Woolwich (the barn building itself was even disassembled and rebuilt at the Warren). In 1696 Laboratory Square was built to house its operations, which included manufacture of gunpowder, shell cases, fuses and paper gun cartridges; it consisted of a quadrangle with a gateway at the north end, buildings along either side and a clock tower at the south end, beyond which further buildings were ranged. The manufacturing process was conducted by hand, overseen by a Chief Firemaster; early paintings show artisans at work in the courtyards among pyramid stacks of shells. A pair of pavilions, which once faced each other across the centre of the courtyard, are now the oldest surviving buildings on the Arsenal site; they were being restored for residential use in 2013.
The Comptroller, Royal Laboratory, had oversight of the Royal Gunpowder Mills in addition to the Woolwich manufactory. From time to time there were public demonstrations of the work of the Laboratory, often in Hyde Park, and by the mid-18th century it was customary for the Royal Laboratory to provide an official 'fireworks display' on occasions such as coronations, peace treaties, royal jubilees etc.
The Royal Brass Foundry
A gun foundry, overseen by a Master Founder, was established in 1717.[3] (The decision of the Board of Ordnance to set up and supervise its own foundry operations followed a devastating explosion at the private foundry it had previously used in Moorfields.) In Woolwich, the original Royal Brass Foundry building survives (built on the site of the relocated "Greenwich Barn"). Its handsome exterior encloses a space designed for pure industrial functionality, with height to accommodate a vertical boring machine, and tall doors permitting easy removal of newly made cannons.[2]
Completed guns could then be taken through what is now Dial Arch into a complex known as the 'Great Pile of buildings' (built 1717-20) to be finished and stored. Behind the surviving frontage and archway was a small courtyard in which the newly forged guns were turned, washed and engraved; beyond which two large gun-carriage storehouses stood (one for the Navy, one for the Army) at either end of a larger quadrangle, with workshops alongside.
The first Master Founder, Andrew Schalch, served in post for 54 years before retiring in 1769 at the age of 78. In 1770 a revolutionary horse-powered horizontal boring machine was installed in the Foundry by his successor, Jan Verbruggen which inspired Henry Maudslay (who worked at the foundry from 1783) to his inventions improving the lathe. Remarkably, it remained in use until 1843 when a steam-powered equivalent replaced it.
From 1780 a new official, the Inspector of Artillery, was given oversight of the Royal Brass Foundry and of other aspects of gun manufacture including carriage-making (for the time being) and proof-testing, which continued to take place on ranges to the east; (over the next hundred years the proof ranges were moved progressively further eastwards as the Arsenal continued to expand).
The Carriage Works
From the beginning, gun carriages had been stored at the Warren (unlike the guns themselves the wooden carriages had to be kept under cover). By the 1750s manufacture of gun carriages was also taking place on site, overseen by the Constructor of Carriages. This took place around New Carriage Yard (a low quadrangle of storehouses built alongside, and as an extension of, the Great Pile storehouses in 1728-9). In 1803 this activity was formalized as the Royal Carriage Department, a recognition of the importance of effective carriage design and manufacture, alongside that of guns and ammunition, as part of ordnance provision.[4]
The Military Establishment
The Board of Ordnance had had, from the early days of the Warren, teams of artillerymen and military engineers on site. In addition to their wider military duties, these were involved (especially in peacetime) in various activities around the Warren itself: the former, overseen by the Master Gunner of England, assisted in the manufacture as well as the proving of cannons; the latter, overseen by the Chief Engineer, were involved in all kinds of building work in and around the Arsenal.
The Regiment of Artillery
In 1716, two companies of artillery had been formed at the Warren by Royal Warrant; by 1722 the detachment had grown and was named the Royal Regiment of Artillery. These troops (who were not under the command of the Army but of the Board of Ordnance) provided a versatile workforce on site, as well as helping ensure its security; they were housed in barracks within the compound. One barracks block of 1739-40 survives close to Dial Arch; now known as Building 11, it was designed to resemble an adjacent barracks of 1719, since demolished. Each block housed some two hundred men in open barracks accommodation across four floors, with a pair of officers' houses incorporated at either end.
The Corps of Engineers
An Order in Council (dated 22 August 1717) established a permanent contingent of fifty military engineers to serve within the Board of Ordnance. Forty years later the King granted them military rank and, in a Royal Warrant dated 3 March 1759, reformed them into a body of commissioned officers called the Corps of Engineers. (They were renamed the Corps of Royal Engineers in a subsequent warrant of 1787).
Initially, civilians were employed as workers, but in 1787 a Corps of Royal Military Artificers was formed: a body of non-commissioned officers and men who were placed under the command of Royal Engineer officers. (They were later renamed the Royal Sappers and Miners).
From 1795 both these Corps were headquartered in the Warren, and the Engineers had their own quadrangle of workshops (built in 1803). The Royal Engineers had responsibility for the design, construction and maintenance of buildings and other features across the Arsenal site. In 1856, the Royal Sappers and Miners having merged with the Royal Engineers, the headquarters of the newly unified Corps was moved from Woolwich to Chatham. (A small detachment of Engineer officers was retained in Woolwich, based at Mill Hill just off the Common.) After a brief hiatus the Engineers retained responsibility for design and construction of the Arsenal's buildings and other structures, latterly as part of the Building Works Department, which remained active until the 1950s.[2]
The Royal Military Academy
In 1720, the Board established an on-site Academy for the education of its Artillery and Engineer officers. Tower Place had by this time largely been demolished, and the new building erected in its place provided a base for the new Academy alongside a Board Room for the Ordnance Board (together with a new residence for the Storekeeper). The Academy's cadets were housed in their own barracks alongside the southern boundary wall; built in 1751, these were demolished in the 1980s for road widening.
The Royal Military Repository
An offshoot of the Academy was the Royal Military Repository. In the 1770s Captain William Congreve built a "Repository for Military Machines" between New Carriage Yard and some open ground to the east. The building housed an educative display of cannons and mortars, and the open space was used as a training ground to help develop skills in handling large artillery pieces on various terrains in different conflict scenarios.[2]
Their removal to Woolwich Common
By the 1770s the number of artillerymen accommodated in the Warren had increased to 900, prompting the construction of a new Royal Artillery Barracks on Woolwich Common, where they moved in 1777 (whereupon their old barracks were converted into terraces of houses for officers). The Royal Military Repository was destroyed along with New Carriage Yard in the fire of 1802, but was likewise re-established on the area now known as Repository Grounds just west of the Common (which continues to be used for military training to this day). What survived of the items on display at the Repository came to be housed in the Rotunda there from 1820 (having been kept in the old Academy building in the interim); they formed the nucleus of what is now the Royal Artillery Museum. The Royal Military Academy was itself relocated to the south side of the Common in 1806 (although some of the Cadets did not finally vacate the Arsenal until as late as 1882). The old Academy building then became part of the Royal Laboratory; the resident Storekeeper, who still had seniority within the Arsenal, was therefore given a sizeable new house on what was then the south-east edge of the site (later overtaken by expansion, it came to be named after the nearby Middle Gate, the second of three main gates in the Arsenal's perimeter wall). The barracks continued to house artillery officers for a time, and were later converted into housing for senior staff of the Royal Laboratory.
Consolidation of the site
By 1777 the site had expanded to 104 acres (42 ha).[1] Shortly afterwards, convict labour was used to construct a 2.5-mile-long (4.0 km) (approximately) brick boundary wall, generally 8 feet (2.4 m) high. In 1804 this wall was raised to 20 feet (6.1 m) near the Plumstead road, and to 15 feet (4.6 m) in other parts.
Use of convict labour was key to this period of expansion. It was used to construct a huge new wharf, completed in 1813, and then again in 1814–16 to dig a canal (the Ordnance Canal),[5] which formed the eastern boundary of the site.
Guardhouses were built at points on the perimeter; one at the main gate (1787-8) and a pair by the new wharf (1814–15) are still in place today. Security at this time was provided by troops of the Royal Artillery (though from 1843 they began to share guard duties with the Metropolitan Police, who took over responsibility in 1861).[6]
The River Thames was key to the Warren and its operations from the earliest days. A dock was built as part of the rebuilt wharf to facilitate loading and unloading from ships (it was supplemented in 1856 by the first in a series of substantial piers). The canal, as well as forming a boundary, provided access for barges; these were initially used to deliver timber to the heart of the carriage-building department and later provided a transit route for guns and explosives.
19th century: The Arsenal
In 1805, at the suggestion of King George III, the entire complex became known as the Royal Arsenal; its constituent elements retained their independence, however.
Expansion during the Napoleonic War
The Napoleonic wars prompted an increase of activity at the Arsenal, which affected all areas of its operation.
In 1803-5 a substantial Royal Carriage Factory was built (on the site of New Carriage Yard, which had been destroyed by fire - possibly arson - the previous year). Its outer walls, complete with a contemporary chiming clock, survive; within, where there are now new apartment blocks, there was once a vast engineering and manufacturing complex staffed by wheelwrights, carpenters, blacksmiths and metalworkers.[2] It was here that steam power first came to be used in the Arsenal, when Joseph Bramah installed his patented planing machine in 1805.
The Arsenal was soon a renowned centre of excellence in mechanical engineering, with notable engineers including Samuel Bentham, Marc Isambard Brunel and Henry Maudslay employed there. Brunel was responsible for erecting the steam sawmills, part of the Royal Carriage Department; Maudslay later expanded this buying more steam machinery. The Arsenal also became a noted research facility, developing several key advances in armament design and manufacture. One example was the innovative Congreve Rocket, designed and (from 1805) manufactured on site by William Congreve (son of the Comptroller of the Royal Laboratory). Thenceforward rocket manufacture became a key activity, carried out in purpose-built premises on the eastern edge of the site.
Between 1805 and 1813 the massive Grand Stores complex was constructed alongside new wharves by the river; though celebrated as a landmark of size and dignity befitting the Arsenal, the buildings were immediately, and for many years afterwards, vulnerable to subsidence due to their proximity to the river (this was caused in no small part by on-site supervisors directing the use of cheaper wooden piles in place of the stone foundations specified by the architect, James Wyatt). The buildings formed a three-sided quadrangle of warehouses facing the river, with the central open space used as a shot-yard. (The main range of buildings was flanked by smaller quadrangles to the east and west, only fragments of which survive.) The Grand Store was not uniquely, or even primarily, designed as an ordnance store, but rather as warehousing for all kinds of military equipment: an early example of a planned integrated military stores complex.[2]
From 1808, "New Laboratory Square" began to be developed to the north of the original Laboratory complex, with an open-sided quadrangle built around an eighteenth-century Naval storehouse; initially used for storage, it came to be used for manufacturing from the 1850s. Earlier, in 1804, subsidiary Royal Laboratories were set up in the Dockyard towns of Portsmouth and Devonport; the latter (on Mount Wise) had been converted into barracks by 1834[7] but the former relocated to Priddy's Hard, where manufacture (initially of small arms ammunition, later of shells and fuzes) continued, overseen from Woolwich.[8]
Peacetime contraction
Levels of arms manufacture naturally ebbed during the relatively peaceful years after the Battle of Waterloo; between 1815 and 1835 the size of the workforce shrank from 5,000 to 500 (not including military personnel and convicts). At the same time, the Arsenal fell behind the pace of technological change. In the early 1840s, Scottish engineering pioneer James Nasmyth toured the site and described it as a 'museum of technical antiquity'. Nasmyth was subsequently engaged to help modernize the complex, but it was only when Britain was on the brink of war that the pace of mechanization increased until, by 1857 (within the space of a decade), the Arsenal had 2,773 specialized machines at work powered by 68 stationary steam engines.[2] A similar pattern of development was seen at the other Board of Ordnance manufacturing sites: the Royal Small Arms Factory, Enfield and the Royal Gun Powder Factory, Waltham Abbey.
Crimean War: mechanisation and innovation
By 1854, the old Laboratory Square had been roofed over to serve as a vast machine shop at the heart of what was now a munitions factory. The open spaces of the Royal Carriage Works were similarly roofed over and mechanised, and the area of its operations expanded; its carpenters and wheelwrights were moved out into new workshops (which later developed into what is now Gunnery House) east of the main building. (This area had previously been used for the storage and seasoning of the timber used for building the gun carriages.) The building of a new Shot and Shell Foundry, an addition to the Royal Laboratory completed in 1856, enabled manufacture of the latest types of ammunition; this huge complex covered the whole of what is now Wellington Park, and later expanded further to the east.
The Royal Brass Foundry was renamed the Royal Gun Factory in 1855, and its workshops expanded into the Great Pile (Dial Arch) quadrangles. For the first time it diversified into manufacture of iron cannons (which had previously always been commissioned from private contractors); for this it developed a new and much larger foundry complex (on the far side of the Shot and Shell Foundry) which was completed in 1857. The new foundry building, which still stands, was subdivided into three sections (for moulding, casting and trimming) and complemented by a separate forge and boring mill. The early years of its work were defined by famed arms manufacturer William George Armstrong, who in 1859 made his patented designs for rifled ordnance available for government use; (the Arsenal had previously been unable to replicate its effectiveness in-house). He was duly rewarded with a knighthood and the part-time position of Superintendent of the Royal Gun Factory at Woolwich; after further expansion of the factory complex he resigned in 1863 following the demonstration of an even more powerful rifled gun by his rival Sir Joseph Whitworth.[2]
As part of the preparations for the Crimean War (1854–56), Frederick Abel (later Sir Frederick Abel) had been appointed the first War Department Chemist with the aim of investigating the new chemical explosives which were then being developed.[9] He was mostly responsible for bringing Guncotton into safe use and for winning a patent dispute brought by Alfred Nobel against the British Government over the patent rights to Cordite which Abel had jointly developed with Professor James Dewar.[9] A new Chemical Laboratory was built to Abel's requirements;[9] this was numbered Building 20. Abel was also responsible for the technical management of the Royal Gunpowder Factory. He retired from the Royal Arsenal in 1888.
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1854 saw the installation of a Retort house for what would become the Royal Arsenal's Gas Works, which was established close to what was then the north-east corner of the site, just west of the canal. Its Superintendent additionally had charge of all hydraulic equipment (lifts, cranes etc.) in use around the Arsenal site (other than that used directly in the process of manufacturing).
Demise of the Ordnance Board
In the wake of the Crimean War there was widespread criticism of several aspects of Britain's military command. The Board of Ordnance, much criticised for inefficiency, was disbanded in 1855, and the War Office then took over responsibility for the Arsenal and all its activities.
After Crimea
As had happened earlier in the century, the wartime expansion of the 1850s was followed by spending cuts, and workforce contraction, in the 1860s. Twenty years later, though, the Arsenal began to grow again as investment in weaponry research and manufacture resumed. The narrow-gauge Royal Arsenal Railway was opened in 1873, complemented later by a standard-gauge network connected to the main line. Electricity arrived in the Arsenal in the 1870s; initially used for lighting, it was soon used to power all kinds of machinery. An on-site power station was opened in 1896.[2]
Mechanical and managerial developments
The Arsenal was still made up of separate divisions. The manufacturing departments (which soon came to be called Ordnance Factories) were each overseen by a (largely independent) Supervisor (who answered directly to the Director of Artillery and Stores): the Royal Laboratory continued to use hundreds of lathes to manufacture ammunition (including bullets, shrapnel shells, fuzes, percussion caps, as well as shot and shells); the Royal Carriage Department continued to build gun carriages, with metal fast replacing wood for this purpose; and the Royal Gun Factory expanded still further, with a new rolling mill and associated boiler house and forge being erected in the early 1870s, and a huge boring-mill ten years later. Tentative moves toward the manufacture of steel guns were made at this time, though these were mainly sourced from outside contractors; it was not till the turn of the century that iron gun manufacture finally ceased in the Arsenal.[2]
Each Factory was responsible for the initial design and final inspection of items, as well as for the intervening manufacturing process. Once completed, all items manufactured on site passed to the Ordnance Store Department, overseen by the Commissary-General of Ordnance (successor to the Storekeepers of old). He had oversight of one of the world's largest depots for military equipment (following the closure of Woolwich Dockyard in 1869 its site had been given over to serve the department as a storage depot);[10] he also had a degree of seniority across the Arsenal as a whole, being responsible for receiving orders from the Director of Artillery and Stores and disseminating them across the departments.
The three Ordnance Factories guarded their autonomy and resisted efforts made to place them under a single command (the appointment in 1868 of a Brigadier-General with the title 'Director-General of Ordnance and Commandant of the Royal Arsenal' was an initiative which lasted only two years). Since ammunition, guns and carriages had to function together, this lack of co-ordination and communication between the departments that manufactured them inevitably caused problems, at a time when the Arsenal was in any case facing criticism for high levels of wasteful expenditure. An 1886 committee of enquiry, under the chairmanship of the Earl of Morley, laid bare these shortcomings and made a number of recommendations, leading among other things to the (civilian) appointment of Sir William Anderson as Director-General of Ordnance Factories.
Social and sporting activities
In 1868 twenty workers at the Arsenal formed a food-buying association operating from a house in Plumstead and named it the Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society. Over the next 115 years the enterprise grew to half a million members across London and beyond, providing services including funerals, housing, libraries and insurance.
In 1886 workers at the Arsenal formed a football club initially known as Dial Square after the workshops in the heart of the complex,[11] playing their first game on 11 December (a 6-0 victory over Eastern Wanderers) in the Isle of Dogs. Renamed Royal Arsenal two weeks later (and also known as the 'Woolwich Reds'), the club entered the professional football league as Woolwich Arsenal in 1893 and later became known as Arsenal F.C., having moved to north London in 1913.[12] Royal Ordnance Factories F.C. were another successful team set up by the Royal Arsenal but only lasted until 1896.
20th century: The Royal Ordnance Factories
Further enlargement was to follow, and on an unprecedented scale; by the 20th century, though, there was little room for further development on site, so the Arsenal had to expand its area eastwards outside its brick boundary wall onto the Plumstead Marshes. The eastern portion of the Arsenal site had long been used for the more dangerous manufacturing processes, as well as for proof testing. This pattern continued, with the Composition Establishment (where assembly of cartridges, fuzes and other items took place) being moved east of the canal and a lyddite factory being established by the river. Later, much of the area of Plumstead and Erith Marshes was scattered with storage magazines for explosive materials, each in its own walled, moated and earth-traversed enclosure. Manufacture of Whitehead torpedoes, begun in the Arsenal in 1871 (with the canal used as a testing run for a time) was moved to Greenock in 1911.
First World War
At its peak, during the First World War, the Royal Arsenal extended over some 1,300 acres (530 ha)[1] and employed around 80,000 people. The Royal Arsenal by then comprised the Royal Gun & Carriage Factory (which had amalgamated in 1907), the Royal Laboratory (which in 1922 split to form the Royal Ammunition Factory and the Royal Filling Factory) and separate Naval Ordnance and Army Ordnance Store Departments. Other divisions included the Research and Development Department and various Inspection departments set up in the wake of the Morley Report (including that of the Chief Chemical Inspector, Woolwich, successor to the War Department Chemist). The expansion was such that in 1915 the Government built the 1300-home 'Well Hall Estate' at Eltham to help accommodate the workforce.
In addition to the massive expansion of the Royal Ordnance Factories in the Arsenal, and of private munitions companies, other UK Government-owned National Explosives Factories and National Filling Factories were built during the First World War. All the National Factories closed at the end of the War, with only the Royal (munitions) Factories (at Woolwich, Enfield, and Waltham Abbey) remaining open through to the Second World War.
It appears likely that up to the end of the First World War, the Royal Arsenal was guarded by the Metropolitan Police Force, as they also guarded the Royal Navy Cordite Factory, Holton Heath, in Dorset and the Royal Naval Armaments Depot at Priddy's Hard, Gosport up to that time. Since then the Royal Arsenal would have been guarded, until its closure, by the War Office Police Force, who became in 1971 the Ministry of Defence Police Force.
During the quiet period after the end of the First World War, the Royal Arsenal built steam railway locomotives. It had an extensive standard gauge internal railway system, and this was connected to the North Kent Line just beyond Plumstead railway station. The Royal Arsenal also cast the Memorial Plaques given to the next-of-kin of deceased servicemen and servicewomen.
Second World War
The build-up to the Second World War started in the late 1930s. Abel's old Chemical Laboratory was by now too small and new Chemical Laboratories were built in 1937 on Frog Island, on a former loop in the Ordnance Canal. Staff from the Royal Arsenal helped design, and in some cases managed the construction of, many of the new Royal Ordnance Factories (ROFs) and the ROF Filling Factories. Much of the Royal Arsenal's former ordnance production was moved to these new sites, as it was considered vulnerable to aerial bombing from mainland Europe. The original plan was to replace the Royal Arsenal's Filling Factory with one at ROF Chorley and another at ROF Bridgend, but it was soon realised that many more ROFs would be needed. Just over forty had been established by the end of the war, nearly half of them Filling Factories, together with a similar number of explosives factories built and run by private companies, such as ICI's Nobels Explosives, but these private sector factories were not called ROFs.
The Royal Arsenal was caught up in the Blitz on 7 September 1940. After several attacks, the fuze factory was destroyed and the filling factory and a light gun factory badly damaged.[13] Explosive filling work ceased on the site, but the production of guns, shells, cartridge cases and bombs continued.[13] In September 1940, prior to the raid, some 32,500 people worked there; but after the raid this dropped to 19,000.[13] The numbers employed on site had increased by February 1943, with 23,000 employed, but by August 1945 were down to 15,000.[13] 103 people were killed and 770 injured, during 25 raids, by bombs, V-1 flying bombs and V-2 rockets.[13] The staff of the Chemical Inspectorate, working with explosives, were evacuated in early September 1940. Shortly afterwards one of the Frog Island buildings was destroyed by bombing and another damaged. The laboratories were partially re-occupied in 1945 and fully re-occupied by 1949.
The final run-down
During the quiet period after the end of the Second World War, the Royal Arsenal built railway wagons, between 1945 and 1949, and constructed knitting frames for the silk stockings industry, up to 1952.[14] Armament production then increased during the Korean War.
From 1947, the British atomic weapons programme, called HER or High Explosive Research, was based at Fort Halstead in Kent (ARDE), and also at Woolwich. The first British atomic device was tested in 1952; Operation Hurricane. In 1951 the AWRE moved to RAF Aldermaston in Berkshire. ARDE, which had begun in the Arsenal in 1922, retained its Woolwich outstation there until the 1980s.
In 1953, a body called Royal Arsenal Estate was set up to dispose of areas of land deemed surplus to requirements. An approximately 100 acres (40 ha) area of the site, around what is now Griffin Manor Way, was used for an industrial estate; the Ford Motor Company becoming its first tenant in 1955.[15] Two of the roads on this estate Nathan Way and Kellner Road appear to have links with people connected with the Royal Arsenal: a Col. Nathan, at the Royal Gunpowder Factory; and, W. Kellner being the second War Office Chemist.
In 1957 a merger took place which created ROF Woolwich: thus, for the first time, the various manufacturing operations on the site were united into a single Royal Ordnance Factory. Its area of operation was henceforward restricted to the western part of the Arsenal site, with everything to the east being earmarked for eventual disposal. In this guise, the factory continued to operate (with upgraded facilities) for a further ten years.[2]
The Woolwich Royal Ordnance Factories closed in 1967, and at the same time a large part of the eastern end of the site was sold to the Greater London Council. Much of it was used to build the new town of Thamesmead.[16] Parts of the older (western) section of the site were leased as storage or office space to assorted public bodies (including HM Customs and Excise, the British Museum Library, the National Maritime Museum, the Property Services Agency); alongside these tenants, a variety of smaller MOD departments were accommodated, some on a temporary but others on a longer term basis.[6]
Shortly after the closure of the Woolwich Royal Ordnance Factories, the Frog Island chemical laboratories were moved into a new building erected in 1971, in what was to become the Royal Arsenal East. The old Frog Island area was then sold off and a relocated Plumstead Bus Garage was built on part of this site. This action separated what remained of the Royal Arsenal, some 76 acres (310,000 m2), into two sites: Royal Arsenal West, at Woolwich; and, Royal Arsenal East, at Plumstead, approached via Griffin Manor Way. It also led to breaking down of parts of the 1804 brick boundary wall. Part of it near Plumstead Bus station was replaced by iron railings and chain link fencing; later the public roadway (now the A206) was also changed at the Woolwich market area and the Royal Arsenal's boundary was moved inwards so that the Beresford Gate (which had served as the main entrance to the Arsenal since 1829) became separated from the site by the A206. Its mid-1980s replacement, north of the rerouted A206, stands not far from where the original (1720s) main gateway once stood; it is graced by a pair of 18th-century gatepiers and urns saved from The Paragon on the New Kent Road (itself demolished for road-widening in the 1960s).[2]
The Royal Arsenal site retained its links to ordnance production for almost another thirty years as a number of the Ministry of Defence Procurement Executive's Quality Assurance Directorates had their headquarters offices located there. These included the Materials Quality Assurance Directorate (MQAD), which looked after materiel, including explosives and pyrotechnics; and the Quality Assurance Directorate (Ordnance) (QAD (Ord)), which looked after ordnance for the Army. MQAD was the successor of the old War Department Chemist and the Chemical Inspectorate. There was a separate Royal Navy Ordnance Inspection Department that looked after the Royal Navy's interests. QAD (Ord) was based at Royal Arsenal West together with a Ministry of Defence Publications section and part of the British Library's secure storage accommodation. MQAD was based, until closure of the site at Royal Arsenal East; and all the buildings on this site were given E numbers, such as E135. Belmarsh high-security prison was built on part of Royal Arsenal East, becoming operational in 1991.
Closure
The Royal Arsenal ceased to be a military establishment in 1994.
Present day
The sprawling Arsenal site is now one of the focal points for redevelopment in the Thames Gateway zone, but the links to its historic past are not lost. Many notable buildings in the historic original (West) site are being retained in the redevelopment; the site includes Firepower - The Royal Artillery Museum telling the story of the Royal Artillery, and Greenwich Heritage Centre which tells the story of Woolwich, including the Royal Arsenal. Parts of the Royal Arsenal have been used to build residential and commercial buildings. One of the earliest developments was Royal Artillery Quays, a series of glass towers rising along the riverside built by Barratt Homes in 2003.
Residential developments
The western part of the Royal Arsenal has now been transformed into a mixed-use development by Berkeley Homes. It comprises one of the biggest concentrations of Grade I and Grade II listed buildings converted for residential use, with more than 3,000 residents. The first phase of homes at Royal Arsenal, "The Armouries", consisted of 455 new-build apartments in a six-storey building. This was followed by "The Warehouse, No.1 Street". The development has a residents' gym, a Thames Clippers stop on site, a Streetcar car club and a 24-hour concierge facility for residents. Wellington Park provides open space and a public house, the Dial Arch, opened in June 2010.
Plans have now been submitted for a new masterplan encompassing further land along the river. More than 1,700 homes already exist at Royal Arsenal Riverside, with an additional 3,700 new homes planned, along with 270,000 sq ft (25,000 m2) of commercial, retail, leisure space and a 120-bedroom hotel by Holiday-Inn Express. Also included in the plans is the new Woolwich Crossrail station, which has been part-funded by Berkeley Homes.
Historic architecture
Several early 18th-century buildings on the site have been attributed to the architects Sir John Vanbrugh or Nicholas Hawksmoor (both of whom are known to have designed buildings for the Board of Ordnance), including the Royal Brass Foundry, Dial Arch and the Royal Military Academy; but whilst acknowledging their influence (direct or indirect), the Survey of London credits Brigadier-General Michael Richards (Surveyor-general for the Ordnance board at the time) as having played the leading part in their design.[2] In the late-18th and early-19th centuries James Wyatt, as Architect of the Ordnance, was responsible for several buildings on the site, including the Main Guardhouse (1787), the Grand Store (1805) and Middlegate House (1807). More often than not, though, it was the on-site Engineers and Clerks of the Works who were responsible for the design of buildings and other structures within the working Arsenal.
See also
- B. Hick and Son
- Broadwater Green
- Firepower – The Royal Artillery Museum
- Royal Arsenal Railway
- Waltham Abbey Royal Gunpowder Mills
References
- 1 2 3 Hogg 1963b, p. 1292
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Saint, Andrew; Guillery, Peter (2012). "Chapter 3: The Royal Arsenal". Woolwich. Survey of London. Volume 48. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300187229.
- ↑ Masters 1995, p. 6
- ↑ Hogg 1963a, p. 507
- ↑ Masters 1995, p. 32
- 1 2 Timbers, Ken (2011). The Royal Arsenal, Woolwich. London: Royal Arsenal Woolwich Historical Society.
- ↑ "Devonport conservation appraisal" (PDF). City of Plymouth. Retrieved 23 August 2016.
- ↑ "Listed building description". Historic England. Retrieved 23 August 2016.
- 1 2 3 Hogg 1963b, pp. 749–750
- ↑ Semark, H.W. (1997). The Royal Naval Armament Depots of Priddy's Hard, Elson, Frater and Bedenham, 1768-1977. Winchester: Hampshire County Council. p. 124.
- ↑ Masters 1995, p. 91
- ↑ Hogg 1963b, p. 1449
- 1 2 3 4 5 Hogg 1963b, pp. 1024–1025
- ↑ Hogg 1963b, p. 1027
- ↑ Hogg 1963b, p. 1031
- ↑ Masters 1995, p. 113
Sources
- Hogg, Brigadier O.F.G. (1963a). The Royal Arsenal Woolwich. Volume I. London: Oxford University Press.
- Hogg, Brigadier O.F.G. (1963b). The Royal Arsenal: its Background, Origin and Subsequent History Woolwich. Volume II. London: Oxford University Press.
- Hornby, William (1958). Factories and Plant. History of the Second World War: United Kingdom Civil Series. Her Majesty's Stationery Office and Longmans, Green and Co.
- Masters, Roy (1995). The Royal Arsenal, Woolwich. Britain in Old Photographs. Strood: Sutton Publishing. ISBN 0-7509-0894-7.
- Timbers, Brigadier Ken (2011). The Royal Arsenal, Woolwich. London: Royal Arsenal Woolwich Historical Society.
- Saint, Andrew; Guillery, Peter (2012). "Chapter 3: The Royal Arsenal". Woolwich. Survey of London. Volume 48. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300187229.
External links
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Coordinates: 51°29′28″N 0°04′12″E / 51.491176°N 0.069937°E