The Royal Ordnance Factory at Euxton near Chorley was officially opened by King George VI on the 31st March 1939.
At its height in World War Two it employed some 35,000 people manufacturing a wide range of munitions for the armed serves.
The main gate at ROF Chorley
In May 1943 workers on the 928 acres site filled 19 bouncing bombs for the famous ‘Dambuster’ raid on the German dams in the Ruhr valley.
After the war, it diversified into making concrete railway sleepers, prefabricated ‘Airey’ houses and even had a large tailors shop making uniforms.
A railway station called ROF Halt transported the workforce, up to it being closed in September 1965; in 2011, a new station “Buckshaw Parkway” was opened to serve commuters on the Preston to Manchester line.
The site was finally closed by its owners BAE Systems in 2007 and is now a major housing and industrial development called Buckshaw Village.
The Headquarters building on Euxton Lane is now part of Runshaw College.
In 2012, the Chorley Remembers project worked with the Buckshaw Village Community Association and the Barratt Legacy project to research, design and produce three history boards for the site.
We welcome anyone with past connections with the factory to get in touch to share their memories with us, either on video, audio recording or text.
If you’d like to get involved, please get in touch via our Contact page.
Video
Chorley Remembers Secretary Steve Williams launched the ROF Chorley memories project with an in-depth talk at Buckshaw Community Centre in March 2012 - you can watch the video above.
