The Adam Park Project

Item Information:

Catalogue Number: See Report 7 Source: TAPP Archaeology Surveys Location: 17 Adam Park Report No: Report No.7 Artifact Type: Ammunition Production Date: 2010-08-12 00:00:00 Dimensions of Item: Various (See report for detail) Copyright with The Adam Park Project

Other Description:

There were 70 cartridges found along the bank between No.s 17 and 8 Adam Park, all were Allied and the great majority was .303 calibre (See Appendix 4 & 5 report No.7). All were in some way deformed or broken and only one was found with the cordite charge intact and with the bullet in place. Three were found in the same excavation as bullets and two others still in place in their charger. Both the concentrated distribution of bullets and cartridges and the similar amounts recovered suggest that the bullets originally came from the cartridges and that these rounds were dropped or dumped at the site rather than being fired. The cartridges were cleaned and the heads of each round were examined to ascertain details of the head stamp.

Historic Context:

The majority of head stamps were only partially decipherable but it would appear that the .303 cartridges came from eight separate arsenals: The Woolwich Arsenal in Kent Greenwood and Batley in Leeds Kynoch & Co in Birmingham Crompton Parkinson Ltd in Guiseley, Yorkshire The Dominion Arms Company in Quebec, Canada Smalll Arms Ammunition Factory No 1, Footscray near Melbourne,2 Australia Small Arms Ammunition Factory No 3, Hendon, Australia Indian Government Ammunition Factory Kirkee (or Kirkee Arsenal), near Poona, India The single .45 ACP3 cartridge that could be identified appears to have been from the Winchester Repeating Arms factory located in New Haven, Connecticut. A study of the distribution of cartridges by manufacturer is inconclusive; the only clustering of note being for the Kynoch manufactured ordnance in the centre of the concentration.