More information : SW 741 536. In 1889 the British and Colonial Explosives Company Limited acquired a strip of coastline to the west of Perranporth for the construction of an Explosives Factory. The licence for the manufacture of explosives (Cornwall No.148) was issued in 1891, however, the company was unsuccessful, and it was transferred to Nobel's Explosives Company Limited in 1893. The land they acquired was a landscape already marked by industrial activity comprising shafts and sites of engine houses of the disused Perran St George copper mine. In many ways it was a site ideally suited to manufacture nitroglycerine based explosives. The factory occupied an open site facing the sea. This allowed the nitroglycerine factory to be arranged so that the nitroglycerine could flow from building to building by gravity. The crest of the hill to the south also protected its inland neighbours from any accidental explosions. As originally laid out the factory consisted of 14 stone buildings and 20 timber structures, the total number of structures however, increased to around 60 by 1900.
The original intention was for the factory to manufacture dynamite to serve the Cornish mining industry and for export. This it did but
by the turn of the century other nitroglycerine based explosives
were also manufactured including blasting gelatine, gelignite and
gelatine dynamite. The factory was, however, shortlived. A slump
in the explosives market in 1905 caused it to be placed on a care
and maintenance regime and explosives manufacture ceased on the site. The site was, nevertheless, retained by Nobel's who used some of the idle buildings to store cordite produced at their other factories.
The factory was reactivated during the Great War, not as an
explosives factory but as a Filling Factory to assemble grenades,
shells and gaines. During the war the workforce numbered around 1000.
After the closure of the Filling Factory at the end of the war part
of the site was redeveloped, perhaps in the late 1930s by what is
believed to be Wolfram Mine. Extensive remains of this activity
survive on the coast in the form of a processing plant, which
incorporates the use of breeze block in its foundations. The
southern area of the site was also encroached upon by a Second World War airfield which apparently caused little loss to the former
factory area.
The site of the factory lies on a north facing heather and gorse
covered slope above sea cliffs. The factory was entered from St
George's Hill along a track north of St George's Hill Terrace - it
is not known if this terrace is associated with the factory. At the
entrance to the factory a number of former factory building survive
in commercial use. The largest is a former store building (SW 7447 5348). This is a large single storey building, built in rough stone with brick facings and divided into four bays. It is spanned by a double pitch supported on a tension rod truss frame. To its west is a small unidentified building (SW 7437 5347). To its south at (SW 74370 53415) is the former factory Laboratory and Office, adjacent to it is another unidentified factory building originally consisting of three bays, one of which has been removed. To its rear is a free standing water closet.
To the north of the large store was the nitric acid factory and waste
acid denitrification plant. These have been demolished but may be traced as concrete floor slabs. To their east was the
nitroglycerine factory (SW 7425 5370). This has apparently been
quarried away in recent years but a number of square shaped
traverses and brick entrance tunnels to the mounds survive. To the south and east were explosives cartridging huts and expense
magazines. Their positions may be traced as earthwork traverses. (1-1e)
Additional reference. (2) |