What was 'the devil's porridge', manufactured near Dumfries,, in a factory the site of which extended for more than 20 miles?
HM Factory, Gretna HM Factory, Gretna H.M. Factory, Gretna was the United Kingdom's largest Cordite factory in World War I. The government-owned facility was adjacent to the Solway Firth, near Gretna, Dumfries and Galloway. It was built by the Ministry of Munitions in response to the Shell Crisis of 1915. The Devil's Porridge Museum, Eastriggs, Dumfriesshire, commemorates the efforts of these workers during the First World War. H.M. Factory, Gretna stretched from Mossband near Longtown in the east, to Dornock / Eastriggs in the west straddling the Scottish / English border. The facility consisted of four large production sites and two purpose-built townships.
Dumfries No positive information has been obtained of the era and circumstances in which the town of Dumfries was founded. Some writers hold that Dumfries flourished as a place of distinction during the Roman occupation of North Great Britain. The Selgovae inhabited Nithsdale at the time and may have raised some military works of a defensive nature on or near the site of Dumfries; and it is more than probable that a castle of some kind formed the nucleus of the town. This is inferred from the etymology of the name, which, according to one theory, is resolvable into two Gaelic