Sadly I don’t recollect a great deal of the Cheltenham factory. I was probably keeping one eye on his dog and didn’t make any intelligent observations of the machinery.
As I heard it he departed somewhat suddenly to Ireland “lock stock and barrel” so the equipment in the Irish video is almost certainly what he was running in Cheltenham.
Whilst the TGS/Holts video refers to their example as a Birmingham made gun, and it would certainly have been Proofed in Birmingham the Fenian production guns, pre-Ireland, were as far as I know made in Cheltenham. He did have an earlier address in Tewksbury just a few miles up the road, but that appears on a different and earlier design.
When he departed Ireland for Cornwall he came into collision with Devon and Cornwall Police and it seems unlikely any further guns were produced other that the 2 Davis built prototypes (to a different design) illustrated by David Baker.
The locking on the Fenian is the inverted U shaped piece cammed up by the top lever being depressed and dropping down into the slots in the breech extensions.
I did see and handle the Tungum barrelled Fenian, which I think was built to demonstrate the strength of a local company’s tubing. That ended up in the hands of one of his engineers, I believe in lieu of unpaid wages.
The French Charlin design, whilst almost as ugly, looks to be an over and under version of the Darne.
