Main Laboratory And Three Associated Explosives Stores To North At Former Royal Naval Cordite Factory

MAIN LABORATORY AND THREE ASSOCIATED EXPLOSIVES STORES AT FORMER ROYAL NAVAL CORDITE FACTORY, WAREHAM

Laboratory. Built in 1915 by Fox and Sons of London for the Admiralty. Constructed in Flemish bond brick with a hipped plain tile roof and cast-iron guttering fixed to projecting timber eaves. The building has a rectangular plan with a central hall and is designed in the Neo-Georgian style. It comprises a single storey with an attic storey above.

The south elevation faces Laboratory Square and features timber lintels over horned 6/9-pane sash windows arranged in a 3:2:2:3 fenestration pattern either side of the central entrance. Flat-roofed dormers with replacement 6/6-pane windows light the attic. The central entrance comprises panelled double doors with an overlight, flanked by red brick pilasters and a bracketed hood. The 6-bay side elevations have similar fenestration. The west elevation includes a plank door and overlight. The rear elevation has sashes flanking small windows with gauged red brick flat arches.

The interior features lantern lights to the central hall, with a similar dog-leg stair serving offices.

Three single-storey gabled explosives stores stand to the rear, each of similar materials and rectangular plan. Store A2 to the west has a plank door set in an east porch with hipped roof, and two 4-pane casements in each side wall. Store A3 has a stack in its west gable, louvred windows to each side, and an east plank door. Store A5 to the east was remodelled as an acid store after 1918 and has a brick screen wall to its east entrance.

Historical Context

Holton Heath represents the most significant of the explosives factories constructed for the British government during the First World War, distinguished by its plan form and development from earlier gunpowder production sites such as Waltham Abbey. Later sites, such as the Royal Naval Propellants Factory built in 1938 at Caerwent in south Wales, benefited from technology developed at Holton Heath. The Admiralty selected the site in autumn 1914, adjacent to a railway and well-positioned for export to the principal naval dockyards, for manufacturing the Royal Navy's independent supply of cordite for shells. The factory opened in January 1916. Hills at the centre of the site were used for a reservoir and nitroglycerine plant.

In the inter-war period, Holton Heath became, together with Woolwich Arsenal, the site of the British government's most important explosives research laboratory. The nitroglycerine factory was reconstructed following a massive explosion in 1931. A picrite factory for the production of flashless cordite was constructed at the beginning of the Second World War.

From late 1916, the site included a section built for the production of acetone, a major ingredient in cordite, which has international significance for its application of biotechnology on an industrial scale. The acetone plant, nitration plant, cordite press plant, cordite drying plant, and picrite factory are designated as Scheduled Ancient Monuments. Anti-aircraft sites and bombing decoy sites constructed during the Second World War for site protection are also scheduled.

The administrative block and laboratory buildings form the principal elements of a formal layout on the west side of the factory, facing each other across an open space with a small test laboratory building positioned opposite the west entrance gates. The explosives stores stand to the north. These buildings were designed by Fox and Sons of London in the Neo-Georgian style adopted for administrative buildings under Lloyd George's National Factories Scheme, introduced in 1916 to control government munitions production. Thirty-six explosives factories were built under this programme, occupying areas generally between 200 and 300 acres. Holton Heath is the most significant of these. With the exception of the National Machine Gun Factory in Burton-on-Trent, this group of laboratory and explosives store buildings comprises the most important surviving purpose-built complex from the National Factories Scheme.