Description

TQ 39 NE
21/291

ORDNANCE ROAD
Machine shop and attached range to west at Royal Ordnance Factory

GV
II

Small arms factory. 1854-58 for Board of Ordnance. Yellow
brick with facade in polycromatic brick with red brick
dressings and alternate red and yellow brick voussoirs to
arches. Gabled Welsh slate roofs. L-plan with range of
subsidiary buildings to the SW of Machine Shop. Italianate
style front to Machine Shop. One storey, 23 window range.
3-storey clock tower and belfry to centre, with blind arches
to 2nd stage, semi-circular arches with keystones to 3rd
stage, stone impost courses and corbelled brick cornice
beneath hipped roof; lower stage has semi-circular arch over
C20 door with fanlight. Windows with glazing bars set in
semi-circular arches linked by red brick impost course; red
brick corbelling beneath frieze of diaper work and moulded
stone cornice. Right side elevation, partly in similar style
with semicircular arches over doors and windows, has range of
9 north-light gables.
Interior: 12 x 14 bays to front, defined by cast-iron columns
at roughly 20 ft. intervals, supporting wrought-iron trusses
with rooflights; some replacements of late C20. Original
columns cast with Board of Ordnance initials. Central brick
wall, painted, to the north of which the structure continues
for another 14 x 15 bays to rear wall which has round-arched
windows; the majority of columns and roof construction here
are similar in detail to those already noted; some bays
rebuilt in C20.
Subsidiary features: range to west alongside the River Lea, of
brown brick with hipped Welsh slate roofs; two-storey east
elevation of 26-window range, has raised storey band and
gauged flat brick arches over doors and 12-pane sashes;
similar west elevation has timber-framed carpenters' shop to
the rear.
History: the machine shop was the largest and most important
of the new buildings erected on the Royal Small Arms site in
1854-58, the result of a movement to centralize small arms
production following the poor performance of British-made guns
in the early stages of the Crimean War.

This asset was previously listed twice. The duplicate record (List entry number 1249683) was removed from the List on 19 January 2019. The remaining record (List entry number 1240468) falls within the parishes of both Waltham Abbey and Enfield.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q27081730

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Somerset: South and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Norfolk 1: Norwich and North-East: Norwich and North-east v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Warwickshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Bedfordshire, Huntingdon and Peterborough)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1968)
• 
  London 4: North: North v. 4 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Suffolk: East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)