Royal Navy Cordite Factory, Holton Heath
Encyclopedia
The Royal Navy Cordite Factory, Holton Heath, (RNCF), was set up at Holton Heath, Dorset
Dorset
Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...

 in World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 to manufacture Cordite
Cordite
Cordite is a family of smokeless propellants developed and produced in the United Kingdom from 1889 to replace gunpowder as a military propellant. Like gunpowder, cordite is classified as a low explosive because of its slow burning rates and consequently low brisance...

 for the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

. It was reactivated in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 to manufacture gun propellant
Propellant
A propellant is a material that produces pressurized gas that:* can be directed through a nozzle, thereby producing thrust ;...

s for the Admiralty
Admiralty
The Admiralty was formerly the authority in the Kingdom of England, and later in the United Kingdom, responsible for the command of the Royal Navy...

 and its output was supplemented by the Royal Navy Propellant Factory, Caerwent
Royal Navy Propellant Factory, Caerwent
The Royal Navy Propellant Factory, Caerwent, Monmouthshire, UK, was dedicated to the manufacture of explosives or the storage of ammunition from 1939 to 1993....

. After the end of World War II, the explosive manufacturing areas of the site were closed down and some areas of the site reopened as an Admiralty Research Establishment. A major part of the explosives site became a Nature Reserve
National Nature Reserves in England
National Nature Reserves in England are managed by Natural England and are key places for wildlife and natural features in England. They were established to protect the most important areas of habitat and of geological formations...

  in 1981. Other parts of the site were converted into an Industrial Estate; and some may be used for housing.

The Admiralty Research Establishment became part of Defence Research Agency
Defence Research Agency
The Defence Research Agency , was an executive agency of the UK Ministry of Defence from April 1991 until April 1995. At the time the DRA was Britain's largest science and technology organisation...

 (DRA) and DRA Holton Heath finally closed in the late 1990s. None of the site is now owned by the Ministry of Defence
Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom)
The Ministry of Defence is the United Kingdom government department responsible for implementation of government defence policy and is the headquarters of the British Armed Forces....

.

The site

A site was needed because Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...

, the First Lord of the Admiralty, insisted that the Royal Navy had their own independent supply of Cordite. The Army was to be supplied with Cordite from the HM Factory, Gretna
HM Factory, Gretna
His Majesty's Factory, Gretna, or H.M. Factory, Gretna as it was usually known, was a UK government World War I Cordite factory, adjacent to the Solway Firth, near Gretna, Dumfries and Galloway...

, at Gretna, Scotland, another remote location. Holton Heath was chosen in 1914 because of its remote location, away from centres of population, and its good transportation links, on a backwater of Poole Harbour
Poole Harbour
Poole Harbour is a large natural harbour in Dorset, southern England, with the town of Poole on its shores. The harbour is a drowned valley formed at the end of the last ice age and is the estuary of several rivers, the largest being the Frome. The harbour has a long history of human settlement...

, adjacent to the London and South Western Railway
London and South Western Railway
The London and South Western Railway was a railway company in England from 1838 to 1922. Its network extended from London to Plymouth via Salisbury and Exeter, with branches to Ilfracombe and Padstow and via Southampton to Bournemouth and Weymouth. It also had many routes connecting towns in...

,and the A351 Wareham
Wareham, Dorset
Wareham is an historic market town and, under the name Wareham Town, a civil parish, in the English county of Dorset. The town is situated on the River Frome eight miles southwest of Poole.-Situation and geography:...

 to Poole
Poole
Poole is a large coastal town and seaport in the county of Dorset, on the south coast of England. The town is east of Dorchester, and Bournemouth adjoins Poole to the east. The Borough of Poole was made a unitary authority in 1997, gaining administrative independence from Dorset County Council...

 road.

During construction and during World War I, it was guarded by a detachment of armed Metropolitan Police
Metropolitan Police Service
The Metropolitan Police Service is the territorial police force responsible for Greater London, excluding the "square mile" of the City of London which is the responsibility of the City of London Police...

. After World War I, the site was guarded by the Royal Marine Police; and later the Ministry of Defence Police
Ministry of Defence Police
The Ministry of Defence Police is a civilian police force which is part of the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence. The force is part of the larger government agency, the Ministry of Defence Police and Guarding Agency , together with the Ministry of Defence Guard Service...

. There were several scares and false alarms during construction, i.e. claims that various builder's and contractor's English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 or Irish
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 employees were German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 spies or saboteur
Saboteur
A saboteur is someone who commits sabotage.It may also refer to:*Morituri , a 1965 film also known as The Saboteur*Saboteur , a card game by Frederic Moyersoen, published in 2004...

s. All these claims had to be investigated. In 1935, during the Re-armament Period, a new nitroglycerin plant was bought from Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

, Germany, and installed by German technicians. It was necessary for the police to guard them, as they may otherwise have been attacked due to resentment about the rise in power of Nazi Germany and memories of World War I .

The main site was bounded by the A351, Station Road and the London and South Western Railway. Holton Heath railway station
Holton Heath railway station
Holton Heath railway station serves the area of Holton Heath in Wareham, Dorset, England. Located adjacent to the former Royal Navy Cordite Factory, Holton Heath that it was was opened during World War I to serve, the station did not open to the public until 1924.-History:Holton Heath has been...

 was opened to serve the RNCF, which was linked to the railway by a siding which entered the site just east of the station. A few administration buildings were built on the other side of Station Road. A coal-fired water pumping house was also built away from the main site, at Corfe Mullen
Corfe Mullen
Corfe Mullen is a village in Dorset, England, on the north-western urban fringe of the South East Dorset conurbation and is part of the rural district of East Dorset. The population is 10,147 ....

, to pump water from the River Stour
River Stour, Dorset
The River Stour is a 60.5 mile long river which flows through Wiltshire and Dorset in southern England, and drains into the English Channel. It is sometimes called the Dorset Stour to distinguish it from rivers of the same name...

. Supplied with coal from its own railway siding on the Somerset and Dorset Railway, which passed nearby, it was linked to a 3.5 million gallon reservoir inside the RNCF by a 16 inch water main.

A jetty, Rockley Jetty, was also constructed in Poole Harbour
Poole Harbour
Poole Harbour is a large natural harbour in Dorset, southern England, with the town of Poole on its shores. The harbour is a drowned valley formed at the end of the last ice age and is the estuary of several rivers, the largest being the Frome. The harbour has a long history of human settlement...

 just outside the main site. It was used to transport Cordite by boat to Priddy's Hard
Priddy's Hard
Priddy's Hard is an area of Gosport, in Hampshire, England now being developed for housing with part of the site retained as a museum. However, for some two hundred years it was a restricted-access site; first becoming a fort and then an armaments depot for Royal Navy and British Army weapons,...

, in Gosport
Gosport
Gosport is a town, district and borough situated on the south coast of England, within the county of Hampshire. It has approximately 80,000 permanent residents with a further 5,000-10,000 during the summer months...

 . The jetty was linked into the factory's railway system using standard gauge
Standard gauge
The standard gauge is a widely-used track gauge . Approximately 60% of the world's existing railway lines are built to this gauge...

 track. This private track ran parallel to the London and South Western Railway (LSWR) for some distance. It crossed over the top of the LSWR means of a bridge
Bridge
A bridge is a structure built to span physical obstacles such as a body of water, valley, or road, for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle...

.

Chaim Weizmann and Acetone

Production of Cordite required large volumes of the solvent Acetone
Acetone
Acetone is the organic compound with the formula 2CO, a colorless, mobile, flammable liquid, the simplest example of the ketones.Acetone is miscible with water and serves as an important solvent in its own right, typically as the solvent of choice for cleaning purposes in the laboratory...

 and this was in short supply. At the time, acetone was manufactured by destructive distillation
Destructive distillation
Destructive distillation is the chemical process involving the decomposition of feedstock by heating to a high temperature; the term generally applies to processing of organic material in the absence of air or in the presence of limited amounts of oxygen or other reagents, catalysts, or solvents,...

 of wood
Wood
Wood is a hard, fibrous tissue found in many trees. It has been used for hundreds of thousands of years for both fuel and as a construction material. It is an organic material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers embedded in a matrix of lignin which resists compression...

. Chaim Weizmann
Chaim Weizmann
Chaim Azriel Weizmann, , was a Zionist leader, President of the Zionist Organization, and the first President of the State of Israel. He was elected on 1 February 1949, and served until his death in 1952....

 had developed a process of bacterial fermentation
Fermentation (biochemistry)
Fermentation is the process of extracting energy from the oxidation of organic compounds, such as carbohydrates, using an endogenous electron acceptor, which is usually an organic compound. In contrast, respiration is where electrons are donated to an exogenous electron acceptor, such as oxygen,...

, using Clostridium acetobutylicum
Clostridium acetobutylicum
Clostridium acetobutylicum, ATCC 824, is included in the genus Clostridium, is a commercially valuable bacterium sometimes called the "Weizmann Organism", after Jewish-Russian born Chaim Weizmann, then senior lecturer at the University of Manchester, England, used them in 1916 as a bio-chemical...

, in 1912 but it did not appear to have any commercial value.

Chaim Weizmann was introduced to David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman...

, Minister of Munitions
Minister of Munitions
The Minister of Munitions was a British government position created during the First World War to oversee and co-ordinate the production and distribution of munitions for the war effort...

, and Winston Churchill in 1915 and was given facilities to develop the process. He used a laboratory at the Lister Institute in London and industrial plant at Nicholson's Gin
Gin
Gin is a spirit which derives its predominant flavour from juniper berries . Although several different styles of gin have existed since its origins, it is broadly differentiated into two basic legal categories...

 Distillery
Distillation
Distillation is a method of separating mixtures based on differences in volatilities of components in a boiling liquid mixture. Distillation is a unit operation, or a physical separation process, and not a chemical reaction....

 in Bow
Bow, London
Bow is an area of London, England, United Kingdom in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is a built-up, mostly residential district located east of Charing Cross, and is a part of the East End.-Bridges at Bowe:...

 (Three Mills
Three Mills
The Three Mills are former working mills on the River Lea in the East End of London, one of London’s oldest extant industrial centres. The largest and most powerful of the four remaining tidal mills is possibly the largest tidal mill in the world...

) to perfect it.

A full scale acetone plant was set up at the RNCF using bacterial fermentation of Grain
Cereal
Cereals are grasses cultivated for the edible components of their grain , composed of the endosperm, germ, and bran...

. By 1917 there was a shortage of grain so Horse Chestnuts
Common Horse-chestnut
Aesculus hippocastanum is a large deciduous tree, commonly known as Horse-chestnut or Conker tree.-Distribution:Aesculus hippocastanum is native to a small area in the mountains of the Balkans in southeast Europe, in small areas in northern Greece, Albania, the Republic of Macedonia, Serbia, and...

 were used as an alternative source of starch
Starch
Starch or amylum is a carbohydrate consisting of a large number of glucose units joined together by glycosidic bonds. This polysaccharide is produced by all green plants as an energy store...

. Local school children were asked by the Ministry of Munitions to collect Horse Chestnuts; and six huge storage Storage silo
Storage silo
A silo is a structure for storing bulk materials. Silos are used in agriculture to store grain or fermented feed known as silage. Silos are more commonly used for bulk storage of grain, coal, cement, carbon black, woodchips, food products and sawdust. Three types of silos are in widespread use...

s were built to store the Horse Chestnuts. A larger bacterial fermentation plant was also set up in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 as they had more Maize
Maize
Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...

 than the United Kingdom. After the end of World War I the bacterial fermentation plant was demolished but the silos were kept. In World War II the basements of RNCF silos were converted to Air-raid shelter
Air-raid shelter
Air-raid shelters, also known as bomb shelters, are structures for the protection of the civil population as well as military personnel against enemy attacks from the air...

s; the silos being filled with earth to provide protection. They survived beyond the closure of the Holton Heath site (see below).

World War II

Note: The Royal Navy Cordite Factory, Holton Heath, like the Royal Navy Propellant Factory, Caerwent, were never part of the Ministry of Supply / Royal Ordnance Factory
Royal Ordnance Factory
Royal Ordnance Factories was the collective name of the UK government's munitions factories in and after World War II. Until privatisation in 1987 they were the responsibility of the Ministry of Supply and later the Ministry of Defence....

 management chain; they were controlled by the Admiralty. However, they were functionally very similar to the Explosive ROF
Explosive ROF
An Explosive ROF was a UK Government-owned Royal Ordnance Factory , which specialised in manufacturing explosives during and after World War II...

s.

Post-war use

After the end of World War II, propellant manufacture ceased at Holton Heath, although Caerwent continued to produce Cordite.

The camp was also used as the fictitious 'Sandford Army Camp' in the UK television series 'Bad Lads Army
Bad Lads Army
Lads' Army is a British reality TV programme, specifically of the kind that constitutes a historically derived social experiment - other examples being The 1900 House and The Frontier House...

 Extreme' in 2006.

Secrecy of the installation

The site is located at the centre of this 1946 O. S. map above and to the right of Holton Heath station
Holton Heath railway station
Holton Heath railway station serves the area of Holton Heath in Wareham, Dorset, England. Located adjacent to the former Royal Navy Cordite Factory, Holton Heath that it was was opened during World War I to serve, the station did not open to the public until 1924.-History:Holton Heath has been...

, which was opened during the First World War to allow staff to reach the works. There is however no trace of the works, which occupied the space between the railway and the main road, on the map.

External links

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