Royal Ordnance Factory Nottingham

R.O.F. Engineering Factory

Factory Number 23

First opened in 1916

First opened as an ROF Jan 1936

Early history of the site

Year	Month	Comment
1915	15th July	Cammell Laird & Co Ltd were asked to build and manage a National Projectile Factory
	23rd July	The above firm produced a scheme and preliminary estimates for a factory to produce 2000 9.2" and 6000 6" shell per week.
	19th August	First sod cut
1916	27th May	First 6" shell completed
	31st May	First 9.2" shell completed
	15th July	9.2" shell production had reached it's design output capacity of 2000 units per week
	19th August	End of first year in operation. 23,519 off 6" shell and 17,842 off 9.2" shell produced
	23rd September	6" shell production had reached it's design output capacity of 6000 units per week.
1917	March	9.2" shell output reaching 5000 per week.
	20th June	Repair plant for 18 pounder guns completed, and an announcement that 6" Mk XIX guns to be produced
	18th August	Ten repaired 18 pounder guns completed
	1st October	The factory name changed to the National Ordnance Factory
	20th October	Output of 6" shell reached peak at 13,500 per week.
	29th October	Last 9.2" shell delivered. Total output 210,262.
	4th December	First four new build 18 pounder guns completed
1918	May	First pair of tubes for the 6" gun produced
	11th July	Last 6" shell produced. Total output 685,801.
	21st September	First 6" gun finished and despatched.
	November	Competed gun output 11 per week
1919		Cammell Laird & Co Ltd still occupied the site under the name of National Ordnace Factory.
1923		The site bought outright by Cammell Laird & Co Ltd. The company built railway wagons through the twenties. Some of the site used to house Nottingham Corporation buses at the time of changeover to trolley buses.
1930		The factory was conveyed to the Metropolitan Cammell Carriage, Wagon and Finance Company.
1935		The above company had gone into liquidation, the new owners becoming the Metro Cammell Carriage and Wagon Company Ltd.
1936		Site purchased by War Office. Re-equipped as an Engineering R.O.F.

Royal Ordnance Factory (R.O.F.) Nottingham

In the late 1930's war was seen as a possibility, if not likely, and a sizeable rearmament programme began, probably also activated by the concern that a large proportion of the arsenal was becoming obsolescent, if not obsolete.

The factory was bought back by the War Office in September 1936, the conveyance (dated 7th May) detailing a sum of Ł94,475 for the purchase.

Considerable effort was expended in turning the Royal Ordnance Factory Nottingham into a modern gun factory. The first machine tools were installed in January 1937 and an article in 'Machinery' magazine of 19th January 1939 describes the last machine tools as installed 'a few weeks ago'

Some idea of the scale of the endeavour can be gauged by Nottingham being listed in the ROF accounts for year ending 31st March 1938 as 'under construction'. As of that date, the amount spent on construction and equipment at Nottingham (compare this with the purchase price!) was Ł1,725,203-19s-11d. A new production facility (the South Shop) was being built at about this time, and roughly 300 people were employed on the reconstruction in 1937. The payroll level had grown to 2,272 people at the end of March 1938, and 3,796 a year later, shortly after the aforementioned 'Machinery' article had described the factory as 'working to capacity'.

World War II was if anything much busier than World War I had been, with the peak employment being said to number 14,000 (a large proportion being women) on two shifts of twelve hours each.

Until the remodelling of the Meadows area around 1975, ROF Nottingham was much less conspicuous than it became (as least from ground level), being situated at the end of a series of Coronation Street type roads full of terraced houses. Apart from Kings Meadow Road, there were parallel streets to the north called Middle Furlong Road, Rupert Street and Newcastle Street, which extended over what became the North Car Park, so that the end houses were very close to the end of main manufacturing unit - North Shop (a gate by the Paint Shop was also in use).

It was decided therefore, as a camouflage measure, to paint a series of stripes running east-west across the North Shop roof, in tune with the roads, so that the factory resembled a continuation of the houses when viewed from the air. There appear to be no traces now of this measure, and just how effective it was is uncertain, but it represents one example of the extent to which such matters were taken seriously.

Production during World War II could be described as being of variants on two main products plus a number of subsidiary projects.

The two main products were the 3.7" anti-aircraft gun and the 40mm Bofors light anti-aircraft gun.

The 3.7" gun was produced in several variants, but the principal ones were the Mark II and the Mark III. These were in production concurrently from 1936-1945, the difference being that whilst the Mark III mounting had four folding outriggers and detachable wheels for mobile use, the Mark II mounting was simpler and heavier, designed to be concreted into a fixed emplacement to defend ports for example from high level air attack.

The 40mm Bofors gun is probably too well known for much of a description to be necessary, being possibly the most famous light anti-aircraft gun ever produced.

Land mobile mountings were made at Nottingham from 1938 onwards, but in fact Nottingham was the main producer of British water-cooled Naval elevating masses and mountings for Bofors guns, the culmination being the STAAG mounting. Known unflatteringly as the antlered beast and more properly as the Stabilised Tachymetric Anti-Aircraft Gun, STAAG was probably the heaviest, costliest and most complicated means ever devised of fitting two Bofors guns to a warship, which whilst technically advanced was not noted for its reliability.

It must be said though that generally both the 3.7" AA gun and the Bofors guns (which were made in second main manufacturing shop - the South Shop) were very successful.

Other projects included the 2 Pounder Anti-tank gun, an advanced design which was rapidly outclassed before being in service for very long (made at ROF (N) from 1937 to 1939), the 5.5" Howitzer (1940-42) and the 17 pounder tank gun (Sherman 'Firefly' conversions were done at Nottingham).


40mm Bofors AA Gun	3.7" AA Gun


Sherman 'Firefly' Conversion

A final, minor project - which led to greater things - was the construction at Nottingham of the hull and suspension units for the first prototype A41. This, with its five sisters, saw limited action with the Guards Armoured Division in the closing days of the war, and is better known as the Centurion tank, later versions being extremely successful, although as will be seen, Nottingham has never really been involved in tank manufacture, although reworks have been performed from time to time.

As would be expected, the period immediately after the war (1946-50) saw little or no armament production and caused the factory to diversify widely, into initially unlikely fields.

Products at this time included tunnelling shields, parts for hosiery machines, structural parts for band-saws and other light wood working machinery, generators, gearboxes for Guy motor-buses, printers guillotines and forging dies for Raleigh pedal cycle cranks.

Autumn 1950 saw the start of another re-armament drive, which became particularly apparent the following year. The Nottingham Journal of Wednesday June 6th 1951 described Nottingham as the 'second largest factory after Woolwich (presumably meaning engineering factory; filling factories tend to be much greater in acreage). Also clearance of the site for the HE Shop was reported (this was built within about a year and finished in 1952. Deep hole boring was claimed to be ten times faster than in World War II (the gun in question being the 20 pdr for early Centurions) and the major non-gun activity was the rework of Comet tanks.

The next few years do not seem to have been very busy, but in the late fifties activity picked up on various vehicle and specialist projects, which will be considered here to highlight again the wide variety of the factory's products. It should be borne in mind that at this time manning levels were quite small: there were 517 people employed in October 1956, falling to 408 two years later, whilst a staff chart for March 1959 lists 84 staff from' the Factory Superintendent to the Assistant Foreman in the Forges.

Products produced through the fifties and sixties (roughly in chronological order, but jobs tended to run in parallel and overlap) included the following - plus other projects, such as an underwater retractable mechanism for sonar on warships, and bomb trolleys etc.

- Yellow Fever or Fire Control Equipment AA Mk 7 (c1955-61)
- Aircraft Freight Loader (1958)
- Truck, 1 ton, Armoured 4 x 4 Humber (Armouring?) c1959-60
- Centurion Mk 5 Rework (1959-62?)
- Bloodhound Surface to Air Missile Launcher c1959-63?
- Bofors 40L70 (development of the WWII gun, more powerful) c1958-62?
- Hornet Malkara missile launcher vehicle c1962
- 10 ton Recovery Vehicle Jib Assembly c1962
- Centurion ARK work c1963


Malkara	Centurion Mk 5 Rework


Yellow Fever Radar Unit	10 Ton Recovery vehicle

Later projects included the Heavy Dummy Axle (HDA); the Eager Beaver Air Portable Fork Lift Truck (APFLT) from roughly 1969-1973, the Bar Mine Layer; the Light Mobile Digger (LMD) trench digging machine, and the manufacture and assembly of the FV 180 Combat Engineer tractor from 1978 to 1963, although ROF Leeds was heavily involved in production of this vehicle.


Heavy Dummy Axle (HDA)	'Eager Beaver' Air Portable Fork Lift Truck (APFLT)


Bar-Mine Layer (BML)	Light Mobile Digger (LMD)


Combat Engineer Tractor (CET)	Armoured Vehicle Layer Bridge (AVLB)

On the large guns side, products had included the 105mm L7, which was for a long time one of the most important products, and the 165mm AVRE that fired a very large HESH projectile and was fitted to the Centurion Mk 5 AVRE (Armoured Vehicle Royal Engineers). Other guns included the 76mm L5 and L23, the 105mmL13 for Abbot, the 8lmm Mortar, and to provide an even more tangible link with the present, the 105mm Light Gun, the first delivery of which to the British Army took place in 1974, a variant of which was type classified in record time by the United States Army as the M119 Howitzer, ordered in 1987.


Light Gun L118	Light Gun M119

The sale of Leeds and closure of Enfield both had their effects on the site, Leeds by causing a considerable amount of vehicle and vehicle-related work to come to Nottingham, and Enfield by causing the small arms facility in South Shop to be implemented. By mid 1987 the South Shop has become disused and was in a semi-derelict condition. The building was remodelled and converted into the Nottingham Small Arms Facility (NSAF). A Small Arms proof and test range was built in what was once an air-raid shelter, and a tube range installed. Finally a building was specially constructed to house the MOD Small Arms Museum collection - known as the Pattern Room.


ROF Nottingham - Early 1960's (Before re-development of 'The Meadows') (Aerial View from the North-West)	ROF Nottingham - Mid 1970's (After re-development of 'The Meadows') (Aerial View from the East)
As may be seen from the above photographs with the re-development of the Meadows area the factory was no longer hidden at the end of a series of cul-de-sac roads (top left in left hand picture). The factory now stood alongside the major route into the city of Nottingham from the south-west, separated from the Meadows housing development (bottom right in right hand picture).

ROF Nottingham effectively stopped manufacture in 2001 and was finally closed in 2002 and the armaments manufacturing capability transferred to the BAE Systems plant at Barrow-In-Furness in Cumbria, and the Engineering function transferred to the BAE Systems New Parks site at Leicester.