Royal Small Arms Factory

The British government’s own rifle factory, on a marshy island at Enfield Lock from 1816 until it closed in 1988. Its name became a metonym: an Enfield is a rifle, and the Lee-Enfield that armed the British Empire through two world wars carries the place in its designation alongside the designer of its bolt. Its last product, the SA80, was also its most troubled, and the work that survived the closure moved to Nottingham.