Explosion After Explosion… Inside One Of Britain’s Forgotten Explosives Factories | Part One

Part Two -    • Looking Over the Remains of a Forgotten Ex...   Hidden on the remote marshes beside the River Thames in Kent are the remains of one of Britain’s most extraordinary explosives factories. The Curtis’s & Harvey explosives works at Cliffe once produced huge quantities of cordite, nitroglycerine, guncotton, dynamite and other explosives. At its height, the sprawling complex covered more than 100 hectares and became one of the most important explosives manufacturing sites in Britain. But working here could be extraordinarily dangerous. Between the early 1900s and the First World War, the Cliffe explosives factory suffered a succession of devastating accidents. Workers were killed by exploding cordite paste, guncotton and nitroglycerine. Two women died while filling dynamite cartridges. Fires swept through buildings, explosions shook the surrounding countryside, and on several occasions an even greater catastrophe was only narrowly avoided. In this documentary, I explore the remarkable history of the Curtis’s & Harvey factory at Cliffe, Kent, following its development from a Victorian gunpowder facility into a vast explosives complex and later the HM Cordite Factory at Cliffe during the First World War. We'll investigate the major explosions of 1902, 1904, 1908, 1911, 1914, 1916, 1917 and 1918, using surviving official records to discover what happened and why. We'll also uncover some of the people behind those accidents, including Frederick Kenknight, whose family had already suffered an extraordinary tragedy before his death in a guncotton explosion, and Herbert Horace Dobinson, who risked his own life following the devastating explosion of 1911 and was awarded the Edward Medal for his bravery. And we'll explore what remains of this remarkable site today — from enormous protective earthworks and abandoned tramways to the surviving structures of what Historic England considers the best surviving purpose-built First World War cordite factory in England. This is the forgotten story of Curtis’s & Harvey at Cliffe — a factory built around the possibility of explosion... and where explosions kept happening. Link to the EH Survey - https://historicengland.org.uk/resear... 📍 Location: Cliffe / Lower Hope Point, Hoo Peninsula, Kent, England 🏭 Site: Curtis’s & Harvey Explosives Factory / HM Cordite Factory, Cliffe 📅 Operational period: 1890s–early 1920s The surviving factory site is protected and has no general public access. Please respect private land, local restrictions and the historic remains. Than you so much to Sue Mount for finding the names of our two girls killed in 1908. They were Clara Goodyear (22) and Julia Munn (18). Both are buried in Cliffe churchyard. ► You can help support me and the channel by giving a little each month: Patreon/Tom Macklaw 🔗   / tommacklaw   If you enjoy documentaries about forgotten British history, industrial disasters, explosions, First World War history, abandoned places and the hidden history of Kent, subscribe for more. #CurtisAndHarvey #Cliffe #KentHistory #BritishHistory #IndustrialHistory #WW1History #ExplosivesFactory #Cordite #HistoryDocumentary #AbandonedBritain