The Repository collection found a new home in a building of unusual provenance, secured for this purpose by the son of the Repository's founder (also named William Congreve).
The Rotunda was initially erected in London in 1814 as an elaborate temporary marquee in the grounds of Carlton House.
It was built for a ball given by the Prince Regent in honour of the Duke of Wellington in anticipation of victory over Napoleon Bonaparte; designed by John Nash, it was made to resemble a military bell tent.
After the victory celebrations were over the building languished without a use; but in 1818 the Prince Regent authorised the Rotunda's removal to Woolwich "to be appropriated to the conservation of the trophies obtained in the last war, the artillery models, and other military curiosities usually preserved in the Repository" and it was rebuilt on the eastern edge of the Repository Grounds.

In its new accessible location the Repository became 'an early and free permanent public museum'.
Inside, trophies and weapons were arranged around the central column with display cases all around containing models and smaller exhibits; larger artillery pieces were displayed outside.

The museum continued in the Rotunda through to the very end of the 20th century, despite attempts at various times (including in 1932, 1953, in the 1960s and 1980s) to move it elsewhere.
Eventually accommodation was secured for a new museum within what had been the Royal Arsenal, after the Army left the site in the 1990s.
The Royal Artillery Museum in the Rotunda closed in 1999 (though the Rotunda continued to house the museum's reserve collection until 2010).
The Repository collection found a new home in a building of unusual provenance, secured for this purpose by the son of the Repository's founder (also named William Congreve). The Rotunda was initially erected in London in 1814 as an elaborate temporary marquee in the grounds of Carlton House. It was built for a ball given by the Prince Regent in honour of the Duke of Wellington in anticipation of victory over Napoleon Bonaparte; designed by John Nash, it was made to resemble a military bell tent. After the victory celebrations were over the building languished without a use; but in 1818 the Prince Regent authorised the Rotunda's removal to Woolwich "to be appropriated to the conservation of the trophies obtained in the last war, the artillery models, and other military curiosities usually preserved in the Repository" and it was rebuilt on the eastern edge of the Repository Grounds.
In its new accessible location the Repository became 'an early and free permanent public museum'. Inside, trophies and weapons were arranged around the central column with display cases all around containing models and smaller exhibits; larger artillery pieces were displayed outside.
The museum continued in the Rotunda through to the very end of the 20th century, despite attempts at various times (including in 1932, 1953, in the 1960s and 1980s) to move it elsewhere. Eventually accommodation was secured for a new museum within what had been the Royal Arsenal, after the Army left the site in the 1990s. The Royal Artillery Museum in the Rotunda closed in 1999 (though the Rotunda continued to house the museum's reserve collection until 2010).
Royal Artillery Museum