Two of us had a most enjoyable visit to this museum which shows how Cordite (a mixture of guncotton and nitro-glycerine) was made to go into the shells which were used in the 1st World War.
An area of 12 miles was taken over by the government and local women and girls recruited to work in the factory. It was dangerous work working with explosives which coloured their skin yellow and affected their health.
At the height of production there were 125 miles of narrow gauge track and 34 engines driven by their own coal-fired power station. Two townships were built to house the employees.
The name of the museum was taken from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s comment that the mixture was kneaded into a sort of devil’s porridge. This excellent museum tells of the work with information about the two world wars.
Carol