Royal Artillery Factory

All those cannon pointing from forts over palm-lined promenades or bristling from gun-decks of Spanish warships: some 26,000 of them were made here from the 17th century, made possible by local iron-mining, and high-temperature furnaces to forge steel. This and similar factories closed in the 19th century when Spain lost its empire, and the foundries of Germany and Britain could make much mightier cannon.