WWII Cheshire: Royal Ordnance Factory Dunham-on-the-Hill Bulk Explosives Storage (1)

Image: © Mike Searle Taken: 26 Jul 2018

A glance at the Ordnance Survey's 1:50k map of the area northwest of the village of Dunham on the Hill reveals a plethora of buildings literally scattered in all directions covering several grid squares. These are the remains of the ROF site of Dunham on the Hill, built in 1941 for the war effort on a requisitioned site on behalf of the Ministry of Supply (MoS). It was never intended as a manufacturing site, but was simply a bulk storage facility for explosives that were to be used in other ROF establishments as fillings for shells and munitions. The site comprises some 28 brick and steel "sheds" scattered over a wide area about a mile square, with an irregular perimeter of between four or five miles. Some 10 of these buildings are designated as magazines, often distinguished by having a blast wall in front, and surrounded by earth and clay blast mounds. All the storage buildings were served by an on-site railway system that in turn was supplied by the main line LMS railway. Explosives were stored in sidings until such time as they were brought into the site by 4-wheeled diesel shunter locomotives of the MoS. The ROF site closed sometime in the 1960s after some military use post war particularly during the Suez and Hungarian Uprising crises of 1956. Permission was obtained to tour around the site which has now been given over to agriculture where some of the many buildings were visited. The example shown here is one of the smaller buildings that was apparently a locomotive storage shed. Image

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