Forthside Ordnance Depot
Location type
WorksName and dates
Forthside Ordnance Depot (1892-)Description
This depot was on the east side of Stirling station and the Scottish Central Railway. It was rail served. To the east is the River Forth and there was a quay for the depot on the west bank. Today many of the original depot/barracks buildings survive, along with the 'Engine Shed' (a former goods transit shed now in use as a conservation centre, see note below).
Forthside House and its grounds were purchased by the War Office from the Rev. A. W. Milroy in 1886 to become a central ordnance depot where the Royal Army Ordnance Corps were based. The house was in the north of the site with barracks (including the 'French Barracks') to the south. The government stores were referred to as the Scottish Arsenal, becoming the central depot in Scotland.
Tenders for the contract to build the depot were invited in February 1889. Construction was in progress in 1892, with some subsidence problems, but the depot was in use in that year, fully in use by 1906. Contents of several stores were relocated, including Stirling Castle and Fort George. Various equipment was stored here including tents, horses, furniture, munitions, etc.
Access was, as seen on the 1896 Ordnance Survey map, somewhat awkward requiring several reversals. First a reversal from the goods yard to Forthbank Carpet Works was needed. Reversing there the south end of the depot would be entered through a boundary gate. This led to a headshunt to the north of the barracks (immediately south of Forthside House) where a further reversal would be needed. This map may represent an incomplete version of the depot, its layout during construction.
A second access point was shown on the time of the 1913 revision & 1918 publication Ordnance Survey map. This connection was further north, a siding entering the depot through a boundary gate alongside the south end of the goods yard and connecting to the headshunt at the north end of the depot. This map does not show the layout or any buildings within the depot.
The 1914 revision and 1922 publication Ordnance Survey map shows 'The Engine Shed' building and further buildings within the depot including a new transit shed to the north and several to the south east with some extension of the depot sidings in the south east of the site - reversal from these sidings would reach 'The Engine Shed'. Confirmation of compulsorily taken over land for the Great War was confirmed in 1921.
By the 1942 revision and 1947 publication Ordnance Survey map further buildings can be seen within the site, including the building now known as 'The Engine Shed'. Sidings continue from the headshunt further within the site to larger depot buildings to the south east, probably a Second World War addition.
The map revised in 1946 and published in 1951 shows these south east sidings extended further south to a loading dock. A small single ended building, probably a locomotive shed, was added near the loading dock. Return Stores Forthside were closed around this date, and relocated to Thornliebank, Glasgow.
This line, by the 1958 map, looped round to the west and join the southern group of Forthbank Carpet Works sidings - crossing the works access road by a level crossing - giving the depot a new access route from just east of Stirling South Shed.
There were Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers workshops here at 26 Command Workshop (with further barracks at Back o' Hill Camp). Military vehicles were maintained and modified, from 1942. The workshops were in the new south eastern part of the site.
This southern connection was the last one to remain in use and was in place until track was lifted (before 1995, having been seldom used for some time). Some track remained embedded in roadways within the depot. The French barracks went out of use in 1999 and the original part of the site - from the quay on the River Forth, the former site of Forthside House, the shed and French Barracks were disposed of. Forthside House and several depot buildings have not survived.
Following sale of the Defence Support Group to Babcock International in 2015 the workshops closed in 2018.
A part of the site remains in military use for the present. Closure is planned for 2022.
The Engine Shed
This building does not appear on the 1896 revision & 1898 publication Ordnance Survey map which does show the majority of the barracks buildings. The building appears in the 1922 revision. The construction date is uncertain, possibly 1898-1914. Possibly immediately pre Great War. The stone building has a glazed clerestory along its length to provide light. A single track entered from the south and there were loading banks / platforms on either side. Probably a transit shed, it may possibly have been used for locomotives too although rather an unconventional layout and apparently without an inspection pit and another building was in the south east of the site from around 1950 which was a more likely candidate building for a shed. Locomotives were assigned to the ordnance depot during the Great War (one was borrowed from Inveresk Paper Co Ltd for use at various depots) and from the Second World War until 1969. When track was removed concrete ramps were laid at the north and south exits.
The building has been fully redeveloped. During reconstruction the building has been extended. The entry, previously offset from the centre line of the building, has been realigned.
Local
The Engine Shed
The Barracks Stirling Conference Centre
Tags
Ordnance Depot BarracksAliases
Stirling Ordnance Depot Forthside Barracks05/01/2022
