ROF Rotherwas
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ROF Rotherwas was a Royal Ordnance Factory filling factory, No 4, located in Rotherwas, Dinedor Parish, Herefordshire, England.
In the early 20th century, the Lubienski-Bodenham family - descended from Mary Tudor, the daughter of King Henry VII - owned the Rotherwas estate, which included a mansion house, Rotherwas Court, and 2,500 acres (1,000 ha) of land on the south side of the River Wye. After the death of Count Louis Pomian Lubienski Bodenham in 1912,[a] the family line ended.[1] The Rotherwas estate was dismantled in 1913. Thirteen of the mansion's wood panelled rooms were sent to America[1] (the Rotherwas Room survives at Amherst College) and the land was put up for sale. At the resultant auction, Herefordshire County Council bought 185 acres (75 ha) that was overlooked by Dinedor Hill and was bordered by the Wye meadows.[2][3][4]
World War I
At the outbreak of World War I, the Ministry of Munitions were looking to create a number of munitions production facilities quickly and cheaply. A site of 100 hectares (250 acres) was acquired by the Ministry on 15 June 1916, located south of Hereford on the junction of the Welsh Marches Line and the Hereford, Ross and Gloucester Railway. Laid out to a standard design, the site encompassed:[2][3]
- 27 miles (43 km) standard-gauge railway
- 3 miles (4.8 km) of roads
- 9 miles (14 km) of guard fence
- 10 miles (16 km) of footpaths and sentry paths
- 370 buildings varying in floor area. Like a typical munitions facility, the buildings were widely spaced on safety reasons, to avoid complete destruction of the facility in case of an explosion
- A rail connected outpost was established at Credenhill as a munitions store. During WW2 this land was again requisitioned for defence and became RAF Hereford, once the home of the Special Air Service.
All components were produced elsewhere, with the facility responsible for final production: inserting explosive into shells, and fitting detonators. Shell filling began on 11 November 1916, with both Lyddite and Amatol explosives being used in production. From June 1918, alongside the main plant at Banbury and supporting site at Chittenden; all three were supplied with dichloroethyl sulphide by the National Smelting Company at Avonmouth Docks, to produce mustard gas shells.[5][6] By the end of WW1, the average output of shells from the facility was 70,000 per week.[2][3]
At peak of 6,000 employees; by October 1918, there were 5,943 employees, 3,977 of which were women.[4] Workers were transported in from billets in Hereford, Leominster and Ross on Wye. Dedicated trains were run from Hereford Barrs Court railway station to the specially built factory station, with free tickets supplied to all employees.[2][3]
Between the wars
The only ROF of 25 sites retained between the wars, it was put into care and maintenance from 1920.[4] From 1926 onwards it resumed filling gas shells, staffed by about 400 men. By the late 1930s it was used by the Royal Navy for filling sea mines.[2][3]
