Weedon Bec: Former Ordnance Depot Storehouses (2)

Image: © Nigel Cox Taken: 3 May 2015

This photograph shows the south elevations of two of the four evenly-numbered storehouses (Nos 2 and 4) of the former Ordnance Depot on the south side of the old canal spur off the Grand Union. They were built during the Napoleonic War between about 1804 and 1810. Please see Image for the north elevations. All eight of the original storehouses are Grade II* Listed Buildings. The storehouse and magazine group at Weedon Bec was planned and built at this time as a unique planned military-industrial complex, complete with its own defensible transport system and surrounding walls. The major Ordnance Depots, which were built for the storage and later the manipulation of guns, their ammunition and propellants, were concentrated around the naval dockyards at Plymouth, Portsmouth and Chatham. Major outliers were located at Purfleet on the Thames and here at Weedon Bec in Northamptonshire, whose location made it the ideal choice in 1802 for a central ammunition depot, served by the Grand Union Canal and close to the small arms factories and workshops of Birmingham, and also far away from the more vulnerable coastal areas and the other ordnance yards that were mainly sited close to the royal naval dockyards. The original plans to build a small arms factory were abandoned, and instead Weedon became the first inland depot of the Board of Ordnance. As early as 1807 it supplied armaments for the expeditionary force bound for the Netherlands. From 1837 the storehouses were used as barracks and as a prison (Nos 5 and 7 being converted for this purpose), and from 1855 as a clothing store. In the 1870s it was converted into one of the Depots created under the army reforms of Edward Cardwell, the Secretary of State for War, and from 1885 as a weapons and equipment store. A large clothing store was built during the Boer War of 1899-1902, from which date the site retained an important role in making small arms and clothes prior to dispatch by rail. After closure in 1965, it was used as a government supply store. The site and buildings are now in use for light industry.

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