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Devil's Porridge Museum
The Devil's Porridge Museum commemorates the large factory complex built in 1915-16 to manufacture cordite used as a propellant in bullets and shells. Cordite comprises cotton fibres (cellulose) mixed with nitric acid to make nitrocellulose. This was mixed with nitroglycerine for extrusion into strands or cords - hence the name cordite. The mixture of cotton fibres and acid was described by Arthur Conan Doyle, then a war correspondent, as 'the Devil's Porridge'.
HM Factory Gretna stretched 9 miles along the Solway coast from Dornock near Eastriggs to Mossband near Longtown. Up to 30,000 workers were employed, 12,000 of whom were women. New townships were built at Eastriggs and Gretna with houses and hostels, medical facilities, police force, post office, churches, dance hall and tennis courts.
Streets in Eastriggs were named after various parts of the Commonwealth and the village was laid out in the form of a Garden City with wide roads planted with trees, cul-de-sacs and crescents. Not all of the buildings have survived but many of the brick hostels have been converted to domestic housing.
See also the description of planned housing in the neighbouring village of Gretna: Link
See Link
for information on HM Factory Gretna and Link for the museum's website.
HM Factory Gretna stretched 9 miles along the Solway coast from Dornock near Eastriggs to Mossband near Longtown. Up to 30,000 workers were employed, 12,000 of whom were women. New townships were built at Eastriggs and Gretna with houses and hostels, medical facilities, police force, post office, churches, dance hall and tennis courts.
Streets in Eastriggs were named after various parts of the Commonwealth and the village was laid out in the form of a Garden City with wide roads planted with trees, cul-de-sacs and crescents. Not all of the buildings have survived but many of the brick hostels have been converted to domestic housing.
See also the description of planned housing in the neighbouring village of Gretna: Link
See Link
for information on HM Factory Gretna and Link for the museum's website.by Jim Barton
Created: Tue, 9 Aug 2016, Updated: Sun, 26 Feb 2017
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