While Pink Routes primarily concentrates on the British Empire’s Coaling Stations and principal commercial ports, there was also a necessity to provide the Royal Navay with arms and munitions. The rapidly expanding Royal Navy required huge stock and arms and ammunition, often for a wide number of gun types. In order to do this Ordnance Facilities were dispersed throughout the far flung Empire, often co-located with coaling station. There was a constant need for these Ordnance Depots to provide guns and stores for both coastal defence batteries and visiting Royal Navy vessels.
Until the Napoleonic Wars, Ordnance Depots were generally used for the bulk storage of gunpowder inside bomb proof magazines. Until 1855 the responsibility for the guns, their ammunition and the propellants (gunpowder) were under the control of the Board of Ordnance (B.O.). The poor showing of the Board of Ordnance during the Crimean War saws its’ abolition in 1856 with the duties taken over initially by the War Office. There was constant attempts by the Admiralty to control their own Ordnance Yards and in 1890 the responsibility for the Ordnance Yards was finally split between the War Office and the Admiralty (Royal Navy).
The primary Ordnance Yards at this time were generally located at or near the main Royal Navy Home Ports.
