Thread: ROF Featherstone, Staffordshire

Its taken me ages to sort throught the 23 sets of pictures I've got to compile this...

For historical purposes I think we can consider three definite and seperate incarnations of the factory and site.

1 The original ROF some 13.5ha in size. Construction of which began in Nov 1940 and production started here in April 1941.

2 Part of the site, containing mainly staff living quarters, proof ranges and a small number of manufacturing buildings were demolished to make way for the prison which opened in 1976 (I'll add some prison info at the end )

3 Part demolition of the remainder, commenced in 2008 (the hospitals, de-contamination, admin buildings etc) to make way for the new category B facility, leaving us with what we now have to day.

May '08


May '10


Cann't remember if these are 08 or 09




May '10


June '08


May '10


Interestingly, this pill box has been left..

Jan '09


May '10


presumably because of this statement from the British archaeology magazines report in October '09s issue..

Interestingly, the hospital was flanked by two pillboxes (or makeshift observation posts); one dating to world war two, the other to the early cold war phase (c 1949- 70). Based on the CBA Defense of Britain database (Defence of Britain Project | The Council for British Archaeology) both structures, constructed of brick and supporting a concrete slab-capped roof, are probably the result of on-site design: neither conforms to any known pillbox classification.

To sum up, unique!

******

Some prison info (the second paragraph is of particular interest...)-

Featherstone is a modern purpose built Category C prison situated in countryside some eight miles north of Wolverhampton. It opened in 1976, originally with four living units. A fifth was added in 1992 taking the maximum population to 599. The bulk of the prisoner population came from the surrounding area and were serving a range of sentences from life to a matter of weeks. An analysis of the prisoner population revealed that 40% spent between nine months and fifteen months at the prison.

Following a series of escapes, the external fence had been replaced and the open vista of the establishment divided up inside by a series of internal fences with buildings and other vulnerable points protected by S wire. The main focus of employment was the factory complex which provided work and some training in the engineering and textiles industries. Two farms were attached to the prison, a dairy farm close to the fence which provided milk for the service and a cereal and rare breeds enterprise with a farm shop that was popular with the general public. Only a very small number of prisoners were trusted to work outside the fence in these areas. The main skill in most of the employment opportunities was to inculcate the work ethic and habit into prisoners.

from here

new build link

Originally Posted by Darloboy

I am not sure which of those pics it is but unfortunatly the one that was demolished seems to have been the Cold-war one

which one is the cold war one???