Gretna, Hm Factory, Eastriggs Explosives Factory, Nitrocotton Production Area, Screens House

Canmore ID 374985

Site Number NY26NE 140.12

NGR NY 25293 65198

This deciduous scrub-grown building is situated 8m ESE of the Beating, Potching and Screening House (NY26NE 140.10). It is roughly rectangular on plan and measures about 43m from WNW to ESE by 20m transversely, within brick-faced pilastered walls 0.9m in height. There are at least two rows of concrete footings for steel stanchions within the interior for roof supports. To the NNW is an internal brick wall measuring 0.23m in thickness and 0.38m in height, which also appears to run the full length of the building. A fragment of concrete flooring survives in the SW corner. What appears to be the foundations of an outshot on the SSW is marked by two large rectangular concrete blocks on the outer edge of a brick platform.

This building is identified as a Screening House on the plan of the works given with a Ministry of Munition Works report (MMW 1919, plan, 119) held in the National Archives, Kew, outlining the processes involved in the manufacture of the cordite propellant during the First World War at H.M. Factory, Gretna (Site 3, Eastriggs).The text indicates it was a steel-framed, corrugated iron sheet clad building with an annexe along one side. This was where the nitro-cotton fibrous pulp was put through shaking screens, dropped through hoppers and bagged before being dispatched to either the Wet Nitro-cotton Magazines (NY26NE 140.15) or the Drying Houses (NY26NE 146). Twelve shaking screen machines were situated on an upper floor, while the bagging took place below. There was a loading platform on the SSW side of the building adjacent to a narrow-gauge railway. An undated plan (SUPP 10-39) held in the National Archives at Kew shows the configuration of the building in greater detail and indicates that there was a small Latrine at the ESE end of the building. Blueprints (SUPP 10-27, unreadable number; SUPP 10-29, 4001, 4122), together with a ground-based, contemporary official photographs taken during and after construction (MUN 5-297 pt2, 319; MUN 5-297 pt3, 366, 395; MUN 5-297 pt5, unnumbered) also at Kew, show a single-bay, two-storey, ridged roofed structure with skylights and a vent running the full length of the building. It had double-sliding doors, windows in its SSW elevation and the whole building was coated with fire-retardant black paint.

This building fell into lot 509, which was offered for sale by auction on 22-5 July 1924 (HM Treasury 1924, 102, item 4) when the land was partly purchased by Mr F. Graham, Raygarth, Eastriggs (Carlisle City Archives, DX 2040/3). The catalogue adds that it was about 7.5m in height. After the building’s removal from the site, only the foundations were left in place and these are readily visible on an aerial photograph (M124/13 04118) flown on 19 August 1940.

Visited by HES Heritage Recording (MMD and AW) 13 May 2022.