Royal Ordnance Factory Royal may refer to: People * Royal (name), a list of people with either the surname or given name * A member of a royal family or royalty Places United States * Royal, Arkansas, an unincorporated community * Royal, Illinois, a village * Royal ...

(ROF) Elstow was one of sixteen UK

Ministry of Supply The Ministry of Supply (MoS) was a department of the UK government formed on 1 August 1939 by the Ministry of Supply Act 1939 ( 2 & 3 Geo. 6. c. 38) to co-ordinate the supply of equipment to all three British armed forces, headed by the Ministe ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, Filling Factories. It was a medium-sized filling factory, Filling Factory No. 16, which filled and packed

munition Ammunition, also known as ammo, is the material fired, scattered, dropped, or detonated from any weapon or weapon system. The term includes both expendable weapons (e.g., bombs, missiles, grenades, land mines), and the component parts of oth ...

s. It was located south of the

town A town is a type of a human settlement, generally larger than a village but smaller than a city. The criteria for distinguishing a town vary globally, often depending on factors such as population size, economic character, administrative stat ...

Bedford Bedford is a market town in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 Census, the population was 106,940. Bedford is the county town of Bedfordshire and seat of the Borough of Bedford local government district. Bedford was founded at a ford (crossin ...

, between the villages of

Elstow Elstow is a village and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Borough of Bedford, Bedfordshire, England, about south of Bedford town centre. History The Countess Judith of Lens, niece of William the Conqueror, founded a Benedictin ...

and Wilstead in

Bedfordshire Bedfordshire (; abbreviated ''Beds'') is a Ceremonial County, ceremonial county in the East of England. It is bordered by Northamptonshire to the north, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Hertfordshire to the south and the south-east, and Buckin ...

. It was bounded on the northeast by the A6 and on the west by a railway line.

Hostel A hostel is a form of low-cost, short-term shared sociable lodging where guests can rent a bed, usually a bunk bed in a dormitory sleeping 4–20 people, with shared use of a lounge and usually a kitchen. Rooms can be private or shared - mixe ...

s were built nearby to accommodate the workers who were mostly

female An organism's sex is female ( symbol: ♀) if it produces the ovum (egg cell), the type of gamete (sex cell) that fuses with the male gamete (sperm cell) during sexual reproduction. A female has larger gametes than a male. Females and ...

. It was built with the Ministry of Works acting as

Agent Agent may refer to: Espionage, investigation, and law *, spies or intelligence officers * Law of agency, laws involving a person authorized to act on behalf of another ** Agent of record, a person with a contractual agreement with an insuran ...

s; building work started in November 1940 and was completed by August 1941. It was managed as an "Agency Factory" by J. Lyons on behalf of the Ministry of Supply as, by then, the Ministry of Supply was overstretched as regards recruiting and managing the workers needed to staff these munitions factories. It had 250 buildings and the site does not appear on Ordnance Survey maps made during wartime or in the postwar period.

Railway system

There were 15 miles of

standard gauge A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), international gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge in Europe, and SGR in East Africa. It is the ...

railway lines which were linked to the

London, Midland and Scottish Railway The London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMSIt has been argued that the initials LMSR should be used to be consistent with London and North Eastern Railway, LNER, Great Western Railway, GWR and Southern Railway (UK), SR. The London, Midland an ...

(former

Midland Railway The Midland Railway (MR) was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1844 in rail transport, 1844. The Midland was one of the largest railway companies in Britain in the early 20th century, and the largest employer in Derby, where it had ...

) line running between

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

and Bedford. The junction was controlled from a signal box called Wilshamstead Junction. On the site a small platform called "Wilshamstead" was built to accommodate workmen's trains which ran from Bedford from 6 August 1941 (and Luton from 6 October 1941) until May 1946.Private and Untimetabled Railway stations by G. Croughton page 141

Wartime production

ROF Elstow started filling munitions in February 1942. It was divided into a number of different filling ''Groups'' (see Filling Factories) which occupied different areas of the site. The Groups filled cartridges, high-explosive (HE) and 4,000-pound

bomb A bomb is an explosive weapon that uses the exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy. Detonations inflict damage principally through ground- and atmosphere-transmitted mechan ...

s and shells. Later larger 8,000-pound, 12,000-pound and 22,000-pound bombs were also filled. The

Cordite Cordite is a family of smokeless propellants developed and produced in Britain since 1889 to replace black powder as a military firearm propellant. Like modern gunpowder, cordite is classified as a low explosive because of its slow burni ...

Group opened in June 1942 and closed in May 1943; it was then employed to recondition shells. The Pellet Group also closed in 1943. After 1943 Elstow was used to store surplus ammunition components and

machine tools A machine tool is a machine for handling or machining metal or other rigid materials, usually by cutting, boring, grinding, shearing, or other forms of deformations. Machine tools employ some sort of tool that does the cutting or shaping. All ...

Closure

ROF Elstow closed in 1946. The

CEGB The Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) was responsible for electricity generation, transmission and bulk sales in England and Wales from 1958 until privatisation of the electricity industry in the 1990s. It was established on 1 Janua ...

took over the site in 1969 with the intention of building a

power station A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the electricity generation, generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electr ...

but this never came to fruition. In the early 1980s Elstow was proposed as a site for a UK nuclear waste repository. In 2007 work began on the new town of Wixams on the site. In the process of applying for planning permission for the Wixams development, a survey of the site was carried out which included interviews with former workers. The report, with site maps and annotated photographs, was published in 2009.

Railway system

Wartime production

Closure

References

Further reading