Brief History (copy), Cook's Explosives Limited and Miners' Safety Explosives Company Limited explaining relationship with Ardeer and nitroglycerine production, Penrhyndeudraeth, Gwynedd, North Wales. ...
MS 8270/21
Description Brief History (copy), Cook's Explosives Limited and Miners' Safety Explosives Company Limited explaining relationship with Ardeer and nitroglycerine production, Penrhyndeudraeth, Gwynedd, North Wales. Part of document pack relating to Nobel/ICI Factories and Ministry of Supply Factories producing explosives in the 19th and 20th centuries gathered by Dr MK Oglethorpe (RCAHMS), 1996 from Mr John Dolan, ex-of Ardeer Explosives Factory, Irvine, Ayrshire.
Date c. 1945
Collection Historic Environment Scotland
Catalogue Number MS 8270/21
Category Manuscripts
Scope and Content Cooke's Explosives (later part of ICI) owned freehold of 230 acres at Penrhyndeudraeth in Gwynedd, North Wales producing nitroglycerine and explosives from 1922. It was also associated with the Miners' Safety Explosive Company. The site had originally been a government explosives factory during World War 1. ICI took a controlling interest in 1927. From 1939-1945 the factory filled 36 million grenades, produced millions of electric detonators, thousands of electric powder fuses, industrial explosives both nitroglycerine (NG) and non-nitroglycerine based. ICI finally took over in 1958, incorporating the factory into Nobel Explosives Ltd. By the 1970s, the factory produced 90% of NG based mining explosives used in UK. The factory closed in 1995. MS 8270/21; note from HRS, HES, 6 August 2024.
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/2729480
