Listing Text

Ordnance Road
TQ 39 NE
5/291 Machine Shop and attached
range to W. at Royal Ordnance
Factory
GV II

Small arms factory. 1854-8 for Board of Ordnance. Yellow brick with
facade in polychromatic 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 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 semi-circular arches over doors and windows, has range of 9 north-light
gables. Interior: 12x14 bays to front, defined by cast-iron columns at
20 foot intervals, supporting wrought-iron trusses with rooflights; all
columns cast withBoard of Ordnance initials. Subsidiary features: range
to west, adjoining river Lea, of brown brick with hipped Welsh slate roofs;
2-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 rear. History: the machine shop was
the largest and most important of the new buildings erected on the Royal Small
Arms site in 1854-8, 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.

Area of machine shop of 14 x 15 bays to rear of central brick plinth and wall
is not of special architectural interest.

Part of this building is in the London Borough of Enfield.

Listing NGR: TQ3725998532