[2] The Royal Artillery Museum collections are designated as being of national and international significance by Arts Council England.

[5] In 1778 Captain William Congreve set up a training establishment within the Warren, as an offshoot of the Royal Military Academy, to instruct officers in handling heavy equipment in the field of battle.

His 'Repository of Military Machines' (soon given the title of Royal Military Repository ) was housed in a long two-storey building alongside the Carriage Works: cannons used for field training were stored on the ground floor while smaller items and models used for teaching purposes were displayed upstairs.

Those items that were saved or salvaged soon found a new home in the old premises of the Royal Military Academy, which itself moved from the Arsenal to Woolwich Common in 1806.

It was built for a ball given by the Prince Regent in honour of the Duke of Wellington in anticipation of victory over Napoleon Bonaparte; designed by John Nash, it was made to resemble a military bell tent.

[9] After the victory celebrations were over the building languished without a use; but in 1818 the Prince Regent authorised the Rotunda's removal to Woolwich "to be appropriated to the conservation of the trophies obtained in the last war, the artillery models, and other military curiosities usually preserved in the Repository" and it was rebuilt on the eastern edge of the Repository Grounds.

[17] Firepower closed in July 2016[18] and its buildings were acquired by Greenwich Council, which had hopes of establishing a "significant new cultural and heritage quarter" on the site.

The Greenwich Heritage Centre was intended to move to the former James Clavell Library, until 2016 part of Firepower,[23][24] but closed in July 2018.