Album of 73 Photographs recording the construction of Spadeadam Rocket Establishment.
Cumbria, England: 1957-1959.
Price: $2,500.00
About the item
Oblong 4to; photographs 9.5 x 7.5 inches. Album pebbled faux black morocco. Fine. Provenance: Rolls-Royce Engineer.
Item #316382
The Rocket Establishment in Spadeadam, Cumbria, was constructed in the late 1950s as a test and launch facility for the U.K.'s Blue Streak missile, which was designed to deliver a nuclear payload to Moscow. The Spadeadam site was divided into five areas: an administration and assembly block, a British Oxygen Company compound for on-site liquid oxygen fuel manufacture, a component test area, the engine test area and the static firing stands. The present album was likely made for in-house documentation by a photographer for Rolls-Royce, who manufactured the engines for the missile. The large format photographs convey in crips detail the construction of the site in its early to late stages. A comparable collection exists in the Science Museum in London.
Intended to be an independent nuclear deterrent for the U.K., the Blue Streak was deemed too expensive and too vulnerable to be used during a pre-emptive strike, and the project was cancelled in 1960. Today, the site at Spadeadam is a Royal Air Force station dedicated to Electronic Warfare.
