Barbly Munitions..Yorkshire, July 2021

[Mikeymutt]

Fancied seeing this place a lot, luckily enough I was near it coming home from Scotland so had to pop in myself. It was a nice relaxed explore. I liked the policemans houses and though they were stripped they had some nice features still. The gunpowder store was also a really interesting building with some nice doors with signage still on them.
During Victorian times the supplies of munitions were organised by the British army. Due to some serious problems during the Crimean war the storage and supply was transferred to the war office. Although this never really solved the problem, as problems arose still in 1915 in the First World War. I think it's the usual the incompetence of moving things from one department to another and shuffling the problem around. The site at Barbly was constructed in 1889 and was one of several forerunners before the larger munitions factories were built. The site was expanded over the years. The central gunpowder store has blast walls around the building. Their are several stores along the far edge and a small row of houses which housed the metropolitan police who guarded the site. The site was used by the ministry of defence till the seventies and the metropolitan police continued to guard it till then, even though no ordnance was stored there anymore. It's nice to see a site that is so intact considering its age. A lot of info here at historic England.

Former War Department munitions depot, Barlby with Osgodby - 1457135 | Historic England

List entry 1457135. Grade II Listed Building: Former War Department Munitions Depot. May include summary, reasons for designation and history.

historicengland.org.uk

The three police houses.

Two smaller stores away from the main buildings

The row of main stores with a central doorway on each and a nice plinth above with signage on them.

 

[BikinGlynn]

Thats a really nice place there.

 

[Sam Haltin]

Good photos. Those buildings are in good condition, especially the former Police houses which could be turned into holiday lets.

 

[Hayman]

The contrast between the original brick buildings and the long exterior concrete-block wall is very obvious. As are the concrete-block walls built inside one of the buildings, as if for farm animal stalls. The peephole on the wooden door is
a bit strange - perhaps as a safety aid, to see what was happening inside before opening the door. There's a Barlby Road in west London. The pass-the-parcel nature of munition manufacture and supply around the time of the Crimean War may have been from the way warfare was changing at the time. The Crimean War may have been the first European war fought with 'modern' weapons, and on an industrialised scale. The US Civil War led the way.