HM Factory Gretna

HM Factory, Gretna, was a World War I munitions factory located in Southern Scotland next to the Solway Firth, Dumfries and Galloway. Described as "the biggest factory in the world", it was 9 miles long, 2 miles wide, and stretched from Eastriggs in the west, past Gretna and across the Scottish/English border to Longtown in the east.

The site was chosen for its remoteness from populated areas, but good access for services and supplies, which still holds true for a number of military facilities located in the surrounding area today. It would also prove difficult for the Luftwaffe to reach, and the area itself provided natural cover, with the sea air and mist from the surrounding hills combining to obscure the site from the air.

Codename Moorside, the factory was built to produce Cordite for the British Army in response to a shortage of shells on The Front, where British and Allied troops were reported to be suffering enormous losses as their artillery was starved of ammunition, while their adversaries had no such problems. Although the Allies had the artillery to support their operations, its Cordite propellant was in short supply, the reserves of acetone required for its production were not available. Acetone was produced by distillation from wood, a limited resource, and also in demand. The breakthrough came when a process for producing acetone by fermentation, previously considered to be of little value, was scaled up and used to replace the wood distillation process, allowing acetone to be produced from grain, an annual crop.

Production began with Cordite RDB (Research Department formula B), but would later switched to Cordite MD (MoDified) as wood-based acetone availability improved. The RDB variant was found to become unstable if stored for long periods. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle visited the factory in 1918, and wrote an article including the phrase "The nitroglycerin on the one side and the gun-cotton on the other are kneaded into a sort of a Devils Porridge | devil's porridge", a description which came to be associated with the material produced at Moorside,

Numbers associated with the factory were impressive: 800+ tons of ammunition produced per week; 30 miles of road; 100 miles of water main; 130 miles of railway; 34 railway engines; a power station; a telephone exchange; 20,000 workers - peaking at 30,000 during construction.

To accommodate the workers, Gretna, the first government sponsored new town in in Britain in the 1900s, was created within the site, to be followed by the smaller village of Eastriggs, a few miles to the west. Until they were completed, this huge number of workers was accommodated in the surrounding towns and villages, resulting in what would now be referred to as hot bed working. Familiar to workers on offshore oil platforms, this means organising working and sleeping into shifts, so that as one worker leaves their accommodation to start work, another is coming off shift to take their place, thereby maximising use of the available facilities.

After World War I ended, the factory was dismantled. Despite the huge size of the operation, almost nothing remains of its construction other than a few anonymous building remains and foundations. Although it covered a large area, the layout would have been relatively sparse, and construction lightweight. This would ensure sufficient distance between buildings to avoid a chain reaction if there should be an accident in one, and to minimise the effects of flying materials in the event of an explosion.

In the 1970s, a local historian discovered and resurrected much of the knowledge of this site. There is now an exhibition located in St John's Church, Eastriggs.

The area still has munitions connections, with MoD munitions depots at Eastriggs and Longtown. The non-explosives operations at MoD Longtown are scheduled for closure by mid-2009.

External links

• The Devil's Porridge web site and exhibition
• Scotsman article, Oct 14, 2005
• Local newspaper summary
• Beith historians visit
• Cordite
• The Shell Scandal, 1915
• Acetone fermentation reference

Aerial views

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