HMF Pembrey - Cordite production enclosure entry tunnel

Image: © John M Taken: 5 Nov 2017

The Pembrey Country Park occupies the site of the former Royal Ordnance Factory. The site was involved with dynamite production from the 1880s. Nobel's Explosives Ltd erected a plant in 1915 to manufacture explosives and propellant with an adjacent shell filling factory. These were taken into state ownership in 1916 as National Factories. These were dismantled after the war and sold by 1926. The site was re-used in the Second World War. The Heritage Environmental Record states 'Earth and sand embanked enclosure with brick entrance tunnel labelled on 1917 plan as Cordite Paste Mixing house. This enclosure would have surrounded one of the 'danger buildings' of the First World War munitions factory at Pembrey. In this area cordite paste, a propellant for munitions, was being manufactured. The explosive nature of the process required each building to be surrounded by a blast bank and an entrance to it was through the curved brick built tunnel which lies on the south side of this enclosure. The enclosure is sub-rectangular and approximately 20m in it longest axis and the bank around 3m high and the tunnel c8m long. The interior of the enclosure is very overgrown. A Pyper 2016' The vegetation was cleared back from the entrances during a recent study.

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