Margaret knows that one of these Lydbrook Munition workers is her father's sister Dorothy (Dorrie) Bundy (nee Morgan) but unfortunately she can't identify Dorrie now. The date is between 1914 and 1918. Margaret added (May 2007): "This is definitely the Edison Swan Cable Works site at Lower Lydbrook, my Aunt did not work at any other site in the Forest-of-Dean. Edison Swan made munitions in the first World War. My Father was an ARP Warden in the
second World War, he always spoke of how the Germans dropped a string of bombs with many other bombs along the river bank at Bishopswood, they were
trying to hit the factory as their intelligence was based on the first World War information.".

Terry Halford added (May 2007): concerning another World War I factory in the Forest: " ..... the old Electric Fuse Factory which was at Brierley. This plant made electric fuses for use in the mining industry. They were used for blasting coal at the nearby Trafalgar mine. I know that the factory produced hand grenades during WWI. If you go to the site now you can still see parts of the flooring which had a leather coating to stop sparks. This factory was derelict in 1922.
Alfred Nobel also did some work in the Lower Lydbrook area with dynamite research, so it's possible this photo was something to do with that,..."

Top left is a railway locomotive.

Thanks also to Rita James who added (July 2007): "My grandmother worked at the munitions factory with bombs with TNT. She told us that they had to smoke to alleviate the effects. She was Agnes May and her sister Ethel Amelia Phillips".

Peter Young added (Aug 2007): "The photographer is G.W.Young from Howle Hill. At that time he had his studios there in the old post office.He was my great grandad. With respect to the bombs landing at Bishopswood, they fell on the fields by the Wye. One place they fell was near the house called 'Bishopswood Leigh', which is a house by the main road running through the hamlet. My Grandad told me that - they used to live there and I can remember seeing the shrapnel marks on the front of the house. At the time the bombs fell, the house was lived in by the Hoyts,and all of the windows in the house were smashed (imploded). A piece of shrapnel narrowly missed one of the resident's head and hit the mirror on the wardrobe".