Dear All.
We are happy to announce that the reservation with the Royal Powder Mills has been agreed and finalized.
During the 25th of July (We are telling you about it a month in advance, which is a record), we will meet at the gates of the site at Beaulieu Drive, Waltham Abbey, Essex and be greeted by one of the people that actually worked on the site when it was open.
The site will then be open SPECIFICLY for us. This means that on this day the site will not be open to the general public and we are most likely to be the only visitors.
The visit will include take us through all of the mill buildings and exhibitions, including access to the north part of the site by land train (access to that part is restricted and therefore is usually not open to the public. It contains the press house where they pressed the BP in order to make it burn faster – with a press “slightly bigger” then the one you probably seen to date
![:)](http://www.pyrosociety.org.uk/forum/public/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
, and the rockets exhibition.
We specifically asked for an employee of the site that has a lot of knowledge of both manufacture process and R&D. This is a chance for you to ask about the little details of the manufacturing process (we stressed that our members will not be interested at only a high level description of the process – as they probably seen it and done it themselves), and if anyone has specific questions in mind they can send them to us and we can ask them to be incorporated to the tour (meaning the answer will be given when we visit the relevant places).
All in all, the site is just like a big open museum – so don’t come expecting them to operate most of the machinery – making for you a kilo of high quality value BP – but from a learning perspective of both processes and usage during the wars, this is a gem.
The visit is expected to be about three hours (including expeditions and a little break). As people will be travelling quite a long distance, we are planning a social and maybe couple of demos after the visit. Price for the visit is expected to be between 7 and 8 pounds per member, and 9 to 10 pounds per non-members. The price includes Entry to site, the land train (which is extra), coffee/tea and biscuits. Any foods/drinks that are a part of the social are covered individually. Extra costs for any demos/admin are covered by the membership fees (which is why non-members pay a bit extra).
For the visit we have pencilled in a minimum of 20 attendees. As per some member’s suggestions, if we can’t fill up the numbers, we will offer UKFR and UKRA the remaining positions.
It is therefore important that anyone intending to visit will drop an email to events@pyrosociety.org.uk ASAP and our events till will give details of payment methods and schedule for the day once those have been finalized (should be next week).