Royal Arsenal

Much of the initial history of the site is linked with that of the Office of Ordnance, which purchased the Warren in the late 17th century in order to expand an earlier base at Gun Wharf in Woolwich Dockyard.

The house with its octagonal tower stood nearby Gun Wharf (the original site of Woolwich Dockyard where the Henry Grace à Dieu had been built around 1515).

In 1681, King Charles II visited the Warren and observed Richard Leake, Master Gunner of England, conduct an experiment with fire-shot in the proof butts.

No manufacturing took place at this stage, however, except for the periodical production of fireworks for state celebrations; (between 1681 and 1694 saltpetre, a key ingredient of gunpowder, was regularly refined on the site).

[6] For most of its history, the civil establishment of the Warren/Arsenal consisted of the following four departments: In addition, proof butts continued to be maintained by the Board of Ordnance to test guns beyond their normal operational limits and for experimenting with new types of ammunition.

The manufacturing process was conducted by hand, overseen by a Chief Firemaster; early paintings show artisans at work in the courtyards among pyramid stacks of shells.

Its handsome exterior encloses a space designed for pure industrial functionality, with height to accommodate a vertical boring machine, and tall doors permitting easy removal of newly made cannons.

Behind the surviving frontage and archway was a small courtyard in which the newly forged guns were turned, washed and engraved; beyond which two large gun-carriage storehouses stood (one for the Navy, one for the Army) at either end of a larger quadrangle, with workshops alongside.

After the formation of the Regiment in 1716, the Royal Artillery took on responsibility for conducting proof tests and the (recently renamed) post of Master Gunner of Great Britain was abolished.

The building housed an educative display of cannons and mortars, and the open space was used as a training ground to help develop skills in handling large artillery pieces on various terrains in different conflict scenarios.

The small corps (which had its headquarters in the Arsenal) was composed of a permanent cadre of officers, who were supplemented at time of war by uniformed civilians (many of whom were volunteers recruited from the ordnance storekeeper's department).

Its outer walls, complete with a contemporary chiming clock, survive; within, where there are now new apartment blocks, there was once a vast engineering and manufacturing complex staffed by wheelwrights, carpenters, blacksmiths and metalworkers.

The Devonport Laboratory (on Mount Wise) had been converted into barracks by 1834[15] but ten years later Portsmouth's (which had been overtaken by dockyard expansion) was relocated to Priddy's Hard, where manufacture (initially of small arms ammunition, later of shells and fuzes) continued, overseen from Woolwich.

In 1803 a burst gun caused damage to nearby buildings, which prompted construction of a new set of proof butts further to the east; these opened (on what would later be the site of the Arsenal's gasworks) in 1808.

[12] Starting in 1811, a project was begun to raise the ground level of the eastern part of the Arsenal site, as far as the canal, using material dredged from the river bed (a huge undertaking, which took nine years to complete).

[12] Levels of arms manufacture naturally ebbed during the relatively peaceful years after the Battle of Waterloo; between 1815 and 1835 the size of the workforce shrank from 5,000 to 500 (not including military personnel and convicts).

Nasmyth was subsequently engaged to help modernize the complex, but it was only when Britain was on the brink of war that the pace of mechanization increased until, by 1857 (within the space of a decade), the Arsenal had 2,773 specialized machines at work powered by 68 stationary steam engines.

The open spaces of the Royal Carriage Works were similarly roofed over and mechanised, and the area of its operations expanded; its carpenters and wheelwrights were moved out into new workshops (which later developed into what is now Gunnery House) east of the main building.

The building of a new Shot and Shell Foundry, an addition to the Royal Laboratory completed in 1856, enabled manufacture of the latest types of ammunition; this huge complex covered the whole of what is now Wellington Park, and later expanded further to the east.

The early years of its work were defined by famed arms manufacturer William George Armstrong, who in 1859 made his patented designs for rifled ordnance available for government use; (the Arsenal had previously been unable to replicate its effectiveness in-house).

The manufacturing departments were mostly left to their own devices, though the Ordnance Select Committee (initially set up to assess the merits of the Armstrong Gun) took some responsibility for overseeing ongoing research and development; it and its successors were given Verbruggen's House to serve as offices and a board room from 1859.

Since ammunition, guns and carriages had to function together, this lack of co-ordination and communication between the departments that manufactured them inevitably caused problems, at a time when the Arsenal was in any case facing criticism for high levels of wasteful expenditure.

In 1886 workers at the Arsenal formed a football club initially known as Dial Square after the workshops in the heart of the complex,[20] playing their first game on 11 December (a 6–0 victory over Eastern Wanderers) in the Isle of Dogs.

Further enlargement was to follow, and on an unprecedented scale; by the 20th century, though, there was little room for further development on site, so the Arsenal had to expand its area eastwards outside its brick boundary wall onto the Plumstead Marshes.

During the quiet period after the end of the Second World War, the Royal Arsenal built railway wagons, between 1945 and 1949, and constructed knitting frames for the silk stockings industry, up to 1952.

Its mid-1980s replacement, north of the rerouted A206, stands not far from where the original (1720s) main gateway once stood; it is graced by a pair of 18th-century gatepiers and urns saved from The Paragon on the New Kent Road (itself demolished for road-widening in the 1960s).

[7] The Royal Arsenal site retained its links to ordnance production for almost another thirty years as a number of the Ministry of Defence Procurement Executive's Quality Assurance Directorates had their headquarters offices located there.

QAD (Ord) was based at Royal Arsenal West together with a Ministry of Defence Publications section and part of the British Library's secure storage accommodation.

In October 2018, planning permission was granted for the first phase of a multi-million pound restoration of historic buildings near the new Woolwich Crossrail station, to create a 15,000sqm complex of theatres, dance studios and places to eat.

[7] In the late-18th and early-19th centuries James Wyatt, as Architect of the Ordnance, was responsible for several buildings on the site, including the Main Guardhouse (1787), the Grand Store (1805) and Middlegate House (1807).