SecretLeeds - History, culture and architecture in Leeds

Due to all the roadworks Manston Lane has a temp. bypass which now runs alongside the foundations/ bases of the wooden huts from the original Barnbow Shell factory.

https://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=53. ... 52/-1.4164


FOUNDATIONS OF WW1 BUILDINGS- ORIGINAL BARNBOW by Isambard Brunel,

Brunel wrote:Due to all the roadworks Manston Lane has a temp. bypass which now runs alongside the foundations/ bases of the wooden huts from the original Barnbow Shell factory.

https://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=53. ... 52/-1.4164


FOUNDATIONS OF WW1 BUILDINGS- ORIGINAL BARNBOW by Isambard Brunel,

Just an observation that exactly 100 years ago the munitions workers who worked in these buildings were asked to give up their Easter Holidays and continue working by Winston Churchill , the Minister for Munitions. There was an Engineers strike in Leeds at the time but the strikers agreed to work over Easter. The urgent need to keep the army in France supplied with shells and ammunition was because the German Spring Offensive started about a week earlier using troops released from the Russian front. The attack was on a scale not seen before on a 50 mile wide front.

If you want any information on the W.W.1. Barnbow Munitions Factory at Crossgates just Google "Barnbow Lasses" and read how 35 women lost their lives and many more were injured whilst they were filling Shells. These poor girls were working in awful conditions, long hours etc, small rations, no holidays as Manpower was needed more and more serving in the Army.