timeline

Rotherwas House and the estate of 2577 acres date back to the 1450s.  The first building was black and white and belonged to the De La Barre family. The estate then passed into the Bodenham family when Sir Roger Bodenham married Isabella, the only daughter of Walter de la Barre of Barres Court. The Bodenhams acquired many large estates throughout Herefordshire and another Sir Roger (born 1545) and his wife Joan came to live at Rotherwas in 1583.  They build the first domestic chapel on the estate in 1583 so they could practice their Catholicism. There are no records of the chapel being consecrated and it may have been used by both Catholics and Protestants.

King James 2nd visited Rotherwas and loved the estate saying “you know, it is not given to all of us to dwell at Rotherwas”

During the Civil Wars of 1642 to 1646 many of the Bodenham estates were ravaged and the Scots army plundered Rotherwas.  The buildings fell into disrepair and the chapel was not used for 20 years.  The family fortune improved during the reign of Charles 2nd and in 1865 the new Rotherwas House was completed.  The Bodenham family also founded two convents nearby in Bullingham: the Sisters of Charity and the Poor Clares.  Count Charles de la Barre Bodenham died in 1883 and his wife nine years later.  As they had no children, the estate passed to her Polish nephew Count Louis Bodenham Lubienski

In 1907 the house was badly damaged by fire and Count Lubienski spent the next two years at Bullinghope Manor before he died in 1909. He was almost penniless.

In December 1912 the estate and house went up for auction. The Renaissance interior and furnishings, including a magnificent panelled room, were shipped to Amherst College in Massachusetts, USA. The land was sold in 76 lots and the chapel was bought by a local businessman and set to be demolished.  Count Lubienski’s 3 children gained Home Office sanction to have the bodies of their family exhumed. 39 bodies were reinterred in a private Catholic cemetery nearby.  Local people protested against the demolition of the chapel and it was saved - we thank them for their courage.

During 1914 to 1918 Rotherwas House was used as a barracks for the military who guarded the munitions factory but few records of this time survive. In 1926 Rotherwas House was demolished but the coach house, estate farm and gardener’s cottage survive and are still in use as private homes.

The first world war 1914 to 1918

12 new munitions factories were urgently needed to supply shells to the allied soldiers in France and the land around Rotherwas, owned by the council, was seen as an ideal location. The Ministry of Munitions started building the new ordnance factory on July 11th 1915 and advertisements for workers started appearing in the Hereford Times. The first shells rolled off the line on November 11th 1916.  When the large shell store was erected it became the largest single span building in Europe.  That metal framework was inspected in 2016 and passed fit for use once again.

ROF Rotherwas included 27 miles of standard gauge railway, 10 miles of footpaths and 3 miles of roads.  There was a hospital with 50 beds, a power station, a fire station and a working farm.  The munitions were surrounded by 9 miles of fencing and security gates stood at each end of Holme Lacy Road, known as the Straight Mile.

By 1917 the factory was producing 70,000 shells every week and 6 thousand people worked there, 4 thousand of them were women.  They came from Wales, the Forest of Dean, Birmingham and across Britain but Hereford didn’t have enough houses to cope. Tents and sheds were put up in fields and the people of Hereford were urged to offer lodgings to the workers.

After the war the women were immediately sent home and 400 men stayed employed at the site until 1921 breaking down ammunition.  

the canary girls  

The shells filled at Rotherwas contained Lyddite and TNT, poisonous substances which caused toxic jaundice.  Dark haired women showed the signs of jaundice earlier than those with red or fair hair so they were chosen to work with the Lyddite.  They became known as the Canaries as the poison stained their skin, hair and teeth yellow.  The chemicals also caused many workers to develop gum disease which led to them losing all of their teeth.  There are numerous examples of the women suffering from miscarriages, stillbirths and infertility during and after working in the munitions.  Babies were born with yellow skin, they became known as the Canary Babies.  Some of them survived, many did not.

the second world war 1939 to 1945

Between the wars the only working munitions factory in Britain was at Woolwich but it was vulnerable for attack from the air.  Rotherwas had been used as a military store since 1924 and in 1932 it was opened as a filling factory for Woolwich.  Secretly the factory was being extended and refurbished as the threat of war increased. 26 filling sheds, 80 air raid shelters plus temporary buildings, offices, police huts, fireman’s quarters and a pond were built and in January 1937 the manufacture of all military explosives was removed from Woolwich to Rotherwas with dozens of staff moving to the city with their families.

Once again there was a huge demand for workers and accommodation in Hereford. Thousands of workers travelled in daily on trains and buses and some cycled from as far away at the Forest of Dean. By 1940, 5000 people were working at Rotherwas.

 On July 27th 1942 a German bomber struck Rotherwas.  The plane was part of a well-planned mission with dozens of planes coming across the channel to target the Midlands, the west of England and Wales. A bomb hit a transit shed killing at least 19 workers, a second struck a girder and hit Moorlands, the home of Superintendent Ernest Hursey in Watery Lane. He was killed alongside his wife Bertha, their eldest son Ronald, and their middle son Ernest’s wife, Vera, and her mother, Florence Carter, who were staying with them. Their youngest son, Ken aged 16, was the only survivor. His oldest brother Ernest Hursey was later killed in action serving in the RAF. We have the names of 16 of the people who lost their lives that day, many more names are still, as yet, unknown.

There were other major accidents at the factory. In September 1941, 3 workers were killed and 6 injured when a milling machine overheated and exploded.

On May 30th 1944 a huge explosion rocked Hereford.  A fire had started in the south section where 2000 pound naval bombs were filled. One bomb had already started smoking. 3 workers,  JW Little, FJ Tyler and AJ Morris helped 800 people to reach safety by dousing the bomb with water. The factory fire brigade then took over and when the bomb split and exploded Assistant Fire Officer FA Lewis and Leading Fireman WJ Davies were thrown 30 foot out of the building.  They returned and carried on dousing the explosives but a second explosion was more powerful. At least 3 people were killed including AJ Morris.. 900 tons of live ammunition lay under the rubble and it took a month for a specialist team to make the site safe. WL Fitzmaurice defused 1500 pounds of explosives on his own to protect his colleagues whilst being continuously soaked by hosepipe.

King George VI awarded 5 George Medals, 9 British Empire Medals, an OBE and an MBE to the workers for their bravery.

After the war the munitions factory was used for disarmament with a skeleton staff kept on. It shut for good in 1967.  

recent years

The munitions site became home to many businesses from the 1960s onwards and is now the Hereford Enterprise Zone - the only such dedicated defence and cyber technology zone in the UK.  The site is gradually being restored and the remaining shell store has been rebuilt, using the 1916 steel frame, to provide a space for small and medium sized businesses specialising in defence.  A specialist cyber technology centre has opened in the south section and the new Hereford University, NMITE, is set to build on site so the next generation of engineers can start their careers at Rotherwas.

A number of passion local projects and campaigns have been fighting hard to gain recognition for the munitions workers of Rotherwas and other sites across the UK.

The ROF Rotherwas project together with BBC Hereford & Worcester’s munitions campaign, the Munitions Workers Association and passionate local history groups have helped to bring the stories of the munitions workers back into the news.  In April 2017 the Prime Minister acknowledged the part played by the UK’s munitions workers in Parliament and a group of munitions workers spent time at Downing Street in October 2017.  BAE Systems have generously provided recognition badges which we have so far presented to more than 60 surviving munitions workers.  Their efforts have been recognised by Herefordshire Council, Worcestershire County Council and the Duchess of Wessex who paid tribute to them in her visit to Hereford Cathedral in June 2017.   

A permanent memorial to all munitions workers was unveiled at the Hereford Archives and Records Office at Rotherwas in 2019 by the Lord-Lieutenant of Herefordshire The Dowager Countess of Darnley. The ‘Rotherwas Angel’ sculpture is due to be erected at Rotherwas in March 2024.

After years of campaigning, the UK Government is now providing official recognition of the work done by munitions workers during the second world war. This has taken years of hard work by the Munitions Workers Association, the former Rotherwas Munitions Group, Rotherwas Together, BBC Hereford & Worcester and the veterans and their families. We went to Downing Street back in October 2017 to ask for this and, finally, it’s happened. You can now apply for a badge and commemorative letter for yourselves or on behalf of a friend or relative. They are also being awarded posthumously - apply for a badge here