ROF Risley

ROF Risley, (Filling Factory No.6) was a large World War II Royal Ordnance Factory filling munitions, including the Grand Slam bomb, in the UK.

With the advent of the Second World War, 927 acres (3.8 km²) of largely heath and mossland which was part of Risley village, between Leigh (then Lancashire, now Greater Manchester) and Warrington (then Lancashire, now Cheshire), was compulsorily purchased and within it was built a large Royal Ordnance Factory. The location was chosen because the low lying mist and cloud helped camouflage the factory from the air; according to a local builder: "It was very lonely and misty at night, and that's why the factory was constructed there ... it was usually covered with a mist or cloud. It was hard to see it in the day time, you know". A part of the 927-acre (3.75 km²) site was drained and construction began in August 1939. It took 18 months to complete, but bombs were produced from September 1940.

Risley Royal Ordnance Factory (ROF) was a filling factory. It received the explosives in bulk, usually by rail, from other ROFs where they were manufactured. Risley specialised in filling them into the various casings to produce the finished munitions. There were 16 filling factories around the country and Risley was known as Filling Factory No. 6. Others in the north west included Chorley (No. 1) and Kirkby (No. 7). One of the features common to all of the filling factories was an area of storage bunkers where the finished munitions were stored awaiting dispatch. The areas within the filling factories were all numbered in the same way. Storage bunkers were designated Area 9. Risley had 20 such bunkers and Area 9 is roughly in the area of the main field in Birchwood Forest Park today. When the new town area of Birchwood was created, most of the bunkers were demolished, but 4 of them were left in place and can still be seen today.

A number of bunkers were also built to house the munitions, to protect them from potential bombing, and also to segregate the site and reduce the consequences of any accidental explosions during manufacture or storage. Although these bunkers are on the surface, they are covered with soil and turf and so give the impression of being underground. It had a dedicated rail link to the Manchester-Wigan branch line, which was used both for bringing in workers and moving materials. Also there was a 'halt' on the Liverpool-Manchester line. In the post war years wooden coaches lay derelict there.

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