waveydave
Out & About Exploration
Wrexham’s ROF facility made cordite, an explosive propellant for shells. ROF Bishopton, ROF Ranskill and ROF Sellafield being the three other propellant factories. The Wrexham site employed 13,000 workers.
The complex was spread over a large area to minimise any damage from aerial attacks.
The buildings were designed to resist incendiary bombs and blast, with thick walls, a reinforced roof and no windows ,only small shuttered openings. Surrounded this were earth banks, both to deflect blast and to direct any explosion from within buildings upwards, some were designed with weak end wall joints for this purpose.
The site was chosen for its distance from European bombers while having good rail networks and a rural location that provided a good supply of labour but in a wide spread area.
The site was well defended, both on the ground and from the air, several Type 2 Pillboxes still remain in the area, found in areas untouched by modern industrial developments, and the entire site was under a mile away from RAF Wrexham at Borras, which was home to at least one fighter squadron, for defending the regions industrial assets from bomber attack.
After the war, the need for cordite ceased, and so did the production facilities at Wrexham. Many of the buildings were left in place, abandoned, and agriculture again took over the fields surrounding the area.
In all, there’s probably about thirty or forty buildings still standing in fairly decent condition these represent about 5% of the original site.
All the structures are completely stripped, apart from ones guarded by overgrown hawthorn, rose hip and bramble. Pillboxes, guard houses and access tunnels jump out of the undergrowth on either side of the site’s internal road and rail system, though all track has long been lifted.
With over 60 years of abandonment this site is incredibly overgrown and initial it appears that there's little too see. But following the paths various structures and tunnels appear. Entering a tunnel leads you too something that you could easily imagine to be part of a lost Aztec civilisation. Every tunnel takes you somewhere new and with no line of sight between structures you never know what lies around the next corner.
Here's what we found during the couple of hours we spent mooching around here ...
Then....
And now....
A nice relaxed mooch apart from the killer brambles.
Thanks fer lookin
The complex was spread over a large area to minimise any damage from aerial attacks.
The buildings were designed to resist incendiary bombs and blast, with thick walls, a reinforced roof and no windows ,only small shuttered openings. Surrounded this were earth banks, both to deflect blast and to direct any explosion from within buildings upwards, some were designed with weak end wall joints for this purpose.
The site was chosen for its distance from European bombers while having good rail networks and a rural location that provided a good supply of labour but in a wide spread area.
The site was well defended, both on the ground and from the air, several Type 2 Pillboxes still remain in the area, found in areas untouched by modern industrial developments, and the entire site was under a mile away from RAF Wrexham at Borras, which was home to at least one fighter squadron, for defending the regions industrial assets from bomber attack.
After the war, the need for cordite ceased, and so did the production facilities at Wrexham. Many of the buildings were left in place, abandoned, and agriculture again took over the fields surrounding the area.
In all, there’s probably about thirty or forty buildings still standing in fairly decent condition these represent about 5% of the original site.
All the structures are completely stripped, apart from ones guarded by overgrown hawthorn, rose hip and bramble. Pillboxes, guard houses and access tunnels jump out of the undergrowth on either side of the site’s internal road and rail system, though all track has long been lifted.
With over 60 years of abandonment this site is incredibly overgrown and initial it appears that there's little too see. But following the paths various structures and tunnels appear. Entering a tunnel leads you too something that you could easily imagine to be part of a lost Aztec civilisation. Every tunnel takes you somewhere new and with no line of sight between structures you never know what lies around the next corner.
Here's what we found during the couple of hours we spent mooching around here ...
Then....
And now....
A nice relaxed mooch apart from the killer brambles.
Thanks fer lookin
