EARLIER this week two Second World War bombs were found within 24 hours on the same Latchford building site.

Army disposal teams were called in twice to carry out explosions on the shells found on Edgewater Park, based next to the Manchester Ship Canal.

Now that land was previously the home of the former Richmonds works.

A number of readers got in touch to say they had heard anecdotally that Richmonds was used to make bombs during the war.

But is that the case?

Well maybe is the short answer.

Another company called Fletcher Russell’s, based on Wilderspool Causeway did, and it was linked with Richmonds.

Janice Hayes, heritage manager at Warrington Museum. takes up the story.

“We can’t find any evidence that Richmonds would have been producing live shells which would need to be destroyed by the bomb squad,” she said.

“A German aerial photograph of 1942 clearly shows that Fletcher Russell’s work is labelled as (in translation) ‘a factory for small bombs’.

“However, what the photograph (above) shows is someone working on shell casing.

“Our understanding was that these would then have been taken to sites like Risley Munitions Works for filling with explosives.

“Clearly there was a major risk to storing explosives on site so it made sense to have a smaller number of well-fortified sites for this purpose rather than at each foundry producing the casings.

“As I said we don’t know for certain that Richmonds even made casings unlike Fletcher Russell’s but given the sites proximity to Latchford Locks I think there would have been a major strategic risk in storing explosives there to fill the cases.”

So can you help us to fill in the gaps?

Did you work at Richmonds during the Second World War and do you remember working with munitions?

Let us know here at Yester Years.

You can email us via newsdesk@guardiangrp.co.uk