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The Royal Naval Gun Factory in Westhoughton was set up in 1916 to build four inch guns for the Admiralty.

They used a six-and-a-half acre site on the edge of the town to produce the weaponry and re-used a factory built 15 years before to produce boilers for the Lancashire cotton industry. This plant was stripped out in 1915 in readiness for the new armament factory.

Eight ton cranes were built to lift the guns around the factory and move them onto the nearby railway line. Forty-one houses were built nearby to accommodate workers at the factory and on 23 July 1917 it was decided the new street should be called ''Jutland Grove'' to commemorate the recent sea battle of the same name.

The works closed as part of a cost cutting exercise by the Royal Navy in early 1919 and was finally dismantled in 1925 after being sold for more than ten thousand pounds to the Westhoughton Coal and Cannel Company.

Location: Greenfield Close, Westhoughton, Bolton BL5 3UU
Image: A four inch gun manufactured in Westhoughton, courtesy of Westhoughton Local History Society

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