Royal Naval Cordite Factory, Holton Heath

A site was needed because Winston Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty, insisted that the Royal Navy had their independent supply of Cordite.

There were several scares and false alarms during construction, i.e. claims that various builder's and contractor's English or Irish employees were German spies or saboteurs.

It was necessary for the police to guard them, as they may otherwise have been attacked due to resentment about the rise in power of Nazi Germany and memories of World War I.

[citation needed] Weizmann was introduced to David Lloyd George, Minister of Munitions, and Winston Churchill in 1915 and was given facilities to develop the process.

He used a laboratory at the Lister Institute in London and industrial plant at Nicholson's gin distillery in Bow (Three Mills) to perfect it.

School children were asked by the Ministry of Munitions to collect horse chestnuts, and six huge storage silos were built to store them.

[citation needed] During the Second World War, the site was a target for German bombers and so a plan to protect it was instigated.

This consisted of creating several "Starfish" decoy sites in the village of Arne, three miles to the southeast, containing flammable material that would be ignited to give the appearance of a burning building.

This was put to the test on the night of 3–4 June 1942 when bombers dropped hundreds of bombs on the decoy site, practically destroying the village of Arne, but leaving the Cordite Factory unscathed.

After the end of World War II, propellant manufacture ceased at Holton Heath, although Caerwent continued to produce Cordite.

[citation needed] The site was to the north-northeast of Holton Heath station, which was opened during the First World War to allow staff to reach the works.

Acetone, used as a solvent in the cordite manufacturing process, was piped in vapour form from stoves to the store where it would be recovered for re-use.

The stone was unveiled by Jill Charman, whose grandfather Robert Rubie Taylor was one of the 10 men killed in the 1931 disaster.