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Ardeer, Ici Works, Detonator Department

Factory (Period Unassigned)

Site Name Ardeer, Ici Works, Detonator Department

Classification Factory (Period Unassigned)

Alternative Name(s) Ardeer Explosives Factory; Imperial Chemical Industries

Canmore ID 89062

Site Number NS24SE 47.08

NGR NS 2918 4017

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/89062

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
Canmore Disclaimer. © Copyright and database right 2024.

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Administrative Areas

  • Council North Ayrshire
  • Parish Stevenston
  • Former Region Strathclyde
  • Former District Cunninghame
  • Former County Ayrshire

Activities

Publication Account (28 January 2021)

This factory manufactured detonators. The detonator was the most important of Alfred Nobel’s inventions (early 1860s) and is the trigger essential for a safe and controlled initiation of the explosive. A detonator is a small device consisting of a metal tube containing a small quantity of primary explosive, which is initiated by a ‘spit’ of flame. This flame can be provided by means of a Blackpowder Safety Fuse or an electronically fired, match-like fuse-head. Conventional Delay Detonators were, as of the 1990s, being augmented by a new generation of highly accurate electronically operated Delay Detonators for some applications.

Detonators were originally manufactured at Westquarter near Falkirk from 1876. Westquarter was eventually closed in the 1930s and the manufacturing of detonators transferred to Ardeer. Alfred Nobel also opened another detonator factory at Redding Muir near Falkirk. Both Westquarter and Redding Muir closed before the the Second World War.

J E Dolan and MK Oglethorpe 1996; 'Nobel’s Factory Transference,’ Linlithgowshire Gazette, Friday 22 December 1933 [https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001907/19331222/011/0003: accessed 28/01/2021].

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