I won't go into the history of Ardeer - once the world's largest explosives factory - again, as I covered it in my previous reports. Previously, I just skirted the borders of this huge (and still partly live) site, yesterday I ventured to the heart...
First to the very overgrown Gunpowder Section, and in a concrete incorporating mill in the woods I found three edge mills:
Edge runner mills were only used for gunpowder which wasn't made seriously after WWI, so they're pretty rare - the Waltham Abbey museum only has a replica, so to find three mint ones is remarkable.
The mills were driven from below - the motors are mostly gone, and frogs swim in the pools:
Next on to the derelict power plant, which provided steam and electricity to the entire site:
The control room is a bit small and skanky:
Another big Hopkinson gauge, just like the one at Carrongrove:
Now on through the woods, and fighting through acres of spiky gorse, to a detonator test building - I think this one went off a bit too violently...
A building with water-cooled storage cylinders - not sure what this is for:
Then this machine - I think it was for some kind of drying as it had heaters and a gas supply:
Onto the testing laboratories - this is like a wee street, with each building containing a different testing machine:
On the far right, you can see a large test mortar - this faced a set of rails which probably had a moving target:
In the middle black-painted metal building, another test mortar:
Next building along, and some high-speed plate cameras for capturing explosions:
The bigger building at the end faces a test area, viewed through a blast wall with viewing slits:
This building had a bunch of offices with stacks of plans (mostly for high-speed cameras it seems), and shelves and shelves of plates from the cameras.
There were also some test samples:
Finally, onto a lead casting workshop:
As usual, there's lots more on all my Ardeer visits in my Flickr set...
First to the very overgrown Gunpowder Section, and in a concrete incorporating mill in the woods I found three edge mills:
Edge runner mills were only used for gunpowder which wasn't made seriously after WWI, so they're pretty rare - the Waltham Abbey museum only has a replica, so to find three mint ones is remarkable.
The mills were driven from below - the motors are mostly gone, and frogs swim in the pools:
Next on to the derelict power plant, which provided steam and electricity to the entire site:
The control room is a bit small and skanky:
Another big Hopkinson gauge, just like the one at Carrongrove:
Now on through the woods, and fighting through acres of spiky gorse, to a detonator test building - I think this one went off a bit too violently...
A building with water-cooled storage cylinders - not sure what this is for:
Then this machine - I think it was for some kind of drying as it had heaters and a gas supply:
Onto the testing laboratories - this is like a wee street, with each building containing a different testing machine:
On the far right, you can see a large test mortar - this faced a set of rails which probably had a moving target:
In the middle black-painted metal building, another test mortar:
Next building along, and some high-speed plate cameras for capturing explosions:
The bigger building at the end faces a test area, viewed through a blast wall with viewing slits:
This building had a bunch of offices with stacks of plans (mostly for high-speed cameras it seems), and shelves and shelves of plates from the cameras.
There were also some test samples:
Finally, onto a lead casting workshop:
As usual, there's lots more on all my Ardeer visits in my Flickr set...
