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G'day folks,
was fortunate enough on a recent visit to the UK to visit what remains of RSAF Enfield.
It was turned into a housing estate / small business park at the end of 2001.
All that remains is the original clock tower( built 1816) and main building.
Most of the old 'machine shed' roof has been retained and now is subdivided into small office buildings as seen in some of the photos.
Thanks very much. Nice photo's. I see the barge is called the 'Harold Turpin'!
Better repurposed than bulldozed! Nice photos. Thanks for sharing them.
A lot of the streets on that estate are named after significant firearms personalities.
BAe reportedly got more money for the land, and that of the Waltham Abbey Explosives Factory up the road, than they paid for the whole factory operation.
An astute observation there DRP. Harold Turpin.......... a man with the most remarkable mechanical acumen whose imagination knew no bounds. If you didn't realise it Forumers, he was the Chief Designer at Enfield, passed away in 1977 and was the inventor of and 'T' in Sten gun along with S for Major Reginald Shepherd and En for England.
Yep, a remarkable man. You could have a Thompson gun, paid for, up front, in gold for £50 or a home grown Lanchester for £11 or a Sten gun for £2:37p. After all, you can only kill a man so dead...........
Well I never ... all these years I thought the 'En' stood for 'Enfield' ..... as with also the Brno/Enfield (BREN)! :banghead:
I wish I was around in 1941 cos I'd have bought a few Thompsons, a few Lanchesters and a hundred STEN guns. Oh, and a few million rounds of ammo.
You could probably have had a free foreign holiday (on the governement) as well....!
No there is s bit of that Brit humor we admire.Quote:
Originally Posted by Roger Payne
Very common mistake Boulet. In the case of the Sten, it was England. This fact ensured that after the war, when inventors and designers could apply for royalties on their products, both Shepherd and Turpin could claim that their invention was their own and not the Governments. Alas, because they were both employed by the Government, their claim was severely curtailed. They got £1,500 each - taxed at the wartime rate of 40%
Generally, if you make inventions using your employer's time and facilities, it belongs to them not you. As it should, especially if you are employed to make inventions.
Great post and pictures, but sad that the site was not preserved more. In the US Springfield arsenal was preserved, at least to a significant degree. Crane, Picitanny and Rock Island are still gong strong.
As an Enfield and British rifle fan, it is very sad to see that there is no real significant production or engineering of new rifle types going on. If I am correct did not H&K do the rebuild of the L85A2 rifle? Did not the SAS adopt the Canadian C7A1 as there special purpose rifle? Did not Lewis Engineering supply the latest self loading sniper rifle to the UK. Except for Accuracy International whatever the current maker of the RPA action, there are no significant rifle designers/makers any more in the United Kingdom.
LSA, Malby, Fazakerley, Enfield, BSA, Parker Hale, AJ Parker, Alex Martin, most if not all of the great London firms, Nottingham and Sterling engineering all closed down and gone with the wind. So sad………
Please correct me if I am wrong, I would like to be wrong about this. Are there any significant arms manufacturing plants left?
Nice to see the old lock again......Herbie Woodend and I were sitting on the banks of the lock with pint in hand (both hands) when they announced the closure of RSAF Enfield Lock. The pub...RIFLES was just a buzzing and Herb said there was a thousand plots taking place in there to see what could probably go home in lunch buckets.
I've been at the closure of two Pattern Rooms: Enfield Lock and Nottingham and both were sad occasions. Both times the collection was in danger of being destroyed. It was always the suspected that the MOD would go in on the weekend and just cut everything up. It is always easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. While access at Leeds is not as easy as it was with Herbie and Richard, it is still a world class arms collection and someday..........
I'll dig out some pictures of the original Pattern Room and post them.
I suppose you could say that BAE Systems, with their 'rail-gun' development, is a significant arms manufacturer ... but most of their research and manufacturing is now spread around the western world. Industry needs primarily a strong home market in order to compete globally. British arms industry has always been weak during peacetime, even in the days of Empire.Quote:
Originally Posted by Frederick303
Plesase do!Quote:
Originally Posted by Warren
Fredrick 303 interesting post mate, walked around this site with my grandfather - a veteran who served king and country 2nd world war (prior to being called eg enlisted ) his observations of the site were the opposite to mine. I was in awe of the engineering events that had taken place over the last 196 years, he was solemn of an area that had produced implements of death.
Disappointing however that RSAF Enfield only has a tiny room dedicated, compared to RSAF Lithgow, Australia who have a massive museum and arms collection - anybody on the forum live near Lithgow?
Politics generally here is hostile to arms manufacture and particularly firearms. And there is zero domestic market for them, and you can't hope to live on exports.
Hi all,
Went on an interesting visit to the old Royal Gun Powder Factory at Waltham Abbey today (RGPF), ostensibly to check out the history of gunpowder and cordite manufacturing, was invented there apparently, plenty of old crumbling buildings and machinery dotted around the now mainly nature reserve, some good displays and info presented there. The independant charity set up to preserve the place are doing they're best to preserve and restore what they can. Very much geared up for kids, as a lot of these sort of places are though, I guess it's tough to get the numbers in, not so many adults with purely firearm related historical interest visit to keep the cash flowing. I liked the armoury exibition, a large privite eclectic collection of deacts held in trust, nothing exciting for us real Enfield enthusiasts, a No4, SMLE and P14, nice collection of Brens and ZB's including a lovely double dovetail 1938 Bren and a cutaway example, a few Stens too but what really impressed me was the 3 young and enthusiastic volenteers working in there, encouraging a hands on look of the guns to the public, demonstrating the weapons, explaining the engineering development and history of everything from matchlocks onwards, all on a one to one basis, not seen that before! in my experience stuff like this is normally behind glass, I thought it encoraged a sensible and responsible look at smallarms generally, a sometimes lost voice. Really good for youngsters with a blossoming interest, hopefully will inspire a few to join us. I had a good long chat with a 22 year old chap who volenteers there inbetween studying forensic ballistics at Uni and apparently collects everything!
Also the missile and rocketry exibition was good, got talking with a highly knowledgeable old ex employe, a real boffin type, great bloke, who with other ex employees of what I assume was the sites post war time as the ERDE (Explosives, Research & Development Etablishment) volenteer there and have created a display of British missiles and rocket motors and all sorts of good bits of 1950's onwards missiles, Black Knight, Sea Wolf, Sea Dart, Polaris to name but a few and was good enough to spend ages going through the manufacturing, materials used, showing me jars of propellant, explaining the engineering and technical stuff well beyond my humble education, learned heaps! They'd apparently got it all from contacts in the industry like BAe etc who were willing to donate and deliver, he said a lot of it could have been scraped! all good stuff, like cutaway trade demonstrators, prototype pieces, apprentice pieces and the like, with more to come.
Ahh, the place must have positively buzzed with activity when we were at the forefront of aerospace technology.
I ran out of time and will return in the near future as I never did get around to investigating Cordite manfucture as intended, really I wanted to see what's left of the manufacturing buildings.
Worth a visit in my opinion, just a few miles upstream of Enfield Lock, probably the Easter bank holiday was a good time to go as all the volenteers were in.
As an asside, poor old King Harold is buried at Waltham Abbey, a stones throw away, down the road, that's worth a quick pilgrimage too.
Poor old King Harold may be at Bosham, nobody really knows IRRC. Funnily enough I bought a watercolour of Bosham at the market recently, done in the 1890s.
Blurrededge, loved the post it has insoired me . Many years ago I purchased the book "Thee Royal Small Arms Factory Enfield & Its Workers by David PAm. I am ashamed to say that like many books I have collected over the years I have not read it yet. I hope to visit the old site once i have completed the book. An inspitrational postQuote:
Originally Posted by blurrededge
The site they preserve now, north of the M25 motorway, is only a part of the once large Waltham Abbey explosives establishment. The bit south of the motorway is completely gone, with a large Sainsbury's distribution warehouse occupying part of the site and the ground level stripped down many feet to remove the contaminated soil. A public park called Gunpowder Park also occupies part of the site. Waltham Abbey began to decline in importance as a manufacturing site in the 1930s, as it was seen to be vulnerable to bombing (and they were counting on the bombers having to come all the way from Germany) so several other factories in the West and Scotland were set up.