Monument record 4092/0/0 - Royal Ordnance Factory at Risley Moss

<1> Grealey S, 1976, The Archaeology of Warrington's Past, Pages 73-74 (Book). SCH3046.

Risley was one of eight new wartime 'Filling Factories' where munitions were filled with explosives, and also assembled. It cost £13.39 million to build and emplyed 22,000 people throughout it's active life. During World War Two 1,000,000 land mines were produced and 500,000 high explosive bombs. It was stopped acting as a munitions factory in 1948. The site possesed twenty massive reinforced concrete wartime magazines each buried under an earth cover and measuring at 26 x30 x 3.2 meters

<2> Ministry of Supply/Warrington Local Studies Library, c. 1945, Royal Ordnance Factory Risley. A Description of the postion, site, buildings and facilities of the Factory (Report). SCH4448.

The site was bounded by the main Warrington-Leigh road to the North and by the Cheshire Lines Railway, joining Manchester and Liverpool, to the South. It had 1.25 miles of road frontage and three gates. The site was flat and was split into 11 sections. Sections 1-9 were rectangles bounded by road or rail and occupied the centre of the site; section 11 covered a small group of buildings used for experimental work and section 10 covered all the buildings on the perimeter of the site. Section 10 covered many types of buildings; machine shops, textile shop, canteens, large stores, office blocks, a residential club, laboratories, laundries, a fire station and a surgery. There were also 21 houses along the road front that belonged to the site. All the buildings were surrounded by rubble drains that connected to a large system of drains that flowed eventually into the Mersey. The system contained silt traps, brick catch pits, and agricultural drain pipes. The site also contained three boiler houses and coal dumps, a salvage yard, six large storage sheds, an asphalt platform for open storage and a sewage farm.

<3> Birchwood Forest Park Rangers, Birchwood at War: The Risley Ordnance Factory 1939-1945 (Report). SCH4449.

ROF Risley was commissioned in August 1939 by the Ministry of Supply and covered 927 acres [although 1000 were alocated the rest was unusable as it was part of Risley Moss]. It was completed 18 months after contruction started, with the help from managerial staff from Woolwich Arsenal in London, the main pre-rearmament filling factory. The good farm land made by farmers draining the peat mosses was destroyed and, despite promises made, the government failed to restore the land after wartime. The peat and farm soil that the site was built on was stripped back to the clay to give a better platform for construction, creating large embankments around the site. The buildings were normally contructed in a way that any blast was directed in one direction; this was done by having one weak wall and protective mounds made of shale and earth that could channel the blast. Various mounds, extant buildings and various components are left from the original site, though much has dissapeared. The site was originally surrounded by a triple fence, the middle being electrified. The site was taken over by Warrington New Town in 1968 and demolition commenced in 1972, though explosives could not be used due to a Universities [nuclear] reactor on the site. This means that the bases of the magazines/bunkers are still present buried under the topsoil of the playing fields

<4> Various, Aerial photographs, 1940s RAF (Aerial Photograph). SCH128.

The site appears to be surrounded by it's own temporary housing estates for workers [CSMR4092/1/0-6] as shown on the 1940s aerial photostaken by the RAF.

<5> Lancaster University Archaeological Unit, 2000, Birchwood Park, Risley, Cheshire: Assessment Report, R2343 (Client Report). SCH3913.

<6> RPS Planning and Development Ltd (Manchester), 2023, Archaeological Desk-Based Assessment: Land at Trident Business Park, Warrington, R4743 (Client Report). SCH9577.

Archaeological Desk-Based Assessment produced in support of an application for the demolition of all existing dwellings at 689 and 689a Warrington Road, and the former Noggin public house and industrial premises, prior to redevelopment of the site. The Noggin Inn was within Section 10 of the World War II Royal Ordnance Factory (ROF) at Risley Moss (CHER 4092/0/0). Section 10 contained a variety of building types. Comparisons with plans of the Thorp Arch Royal Ordnance Factory in West Yorkshire, and the post-war use of the buildings by the Ministry of Defence Navy Department as a shore machinery depot, indicates the buildings on the study site may have been engineering workshops, machine shops and/or warehouses. The study site also contained 13 smaller buildings associated with ROF Risley but these were demolished by 1985.