Gunpowder magazine

Gunpowder, until superseded, was a universal explosive used in the military and for civil engineering: both applications required storage magazines.

They were sold off by the government in 1832, in a semi-derelict condition; but were bought by a Liverpool merchant and were reopened to manufacture gunpowder; finally closing, just over a century ago, in 1903.

The use of gunpowder for both military and civil engineering purposes began to be superseded by newer nitrogen-based explosives from the later 19th century.

[9] This left the sole United Kingdom gunpowder factory at ICI Nobel's Ardeer site in North Ayrshire, Scotland; it too closed in October 1976.

The Gunpowder Magazine in Berwick-upon-Tweed was built in 1745 to service Berwick Barracks and sited at a safe distance from them to the south.

In the Tudor period the White Tower was refitted for this purpose, and by 1657 the entire building, apart from the chapel, was being used to store gunpowder.

Purfleet Royal Gunpowder Magazine was established by Act of Parliament in 1760, built to the design of James Gabriel Montresor and opened in 1765, with a garrison in place to protect it.

[12] Previously, gunpowder had been stored on Greenwich Peninsula,[13] but fears of an explosion there prompted the building of this new establishment further afield.

These substantial brick-built sheds were windowless, with copper-lined doors and sand-filled roof voids – all designed to prevent (or mitigate the effects of) an explosion.

[14] By the end of the eighteenth century, Purfleet was receiving regular consignments of powder from Waltham Abbey, to provide both the Navy and the Army with supplies.

The Ministry of Defence finally closed and sold the site in 1962, and several buildings were demolished to make way for a new housing estate.

Some significant original buildings remain, however: the clock tower, the proofing house (in which samples of new consignments were tested) and one magazine.

[15] According to English Heritage, it represents (along with the magazine at Priddy's Hard in Gosport) "the most outstanding example of a typically British type of magazine, with twin barrel vaults, that relates to a critical period in Britain's growth as a naval power in the decades after the Seven Years' War."

Opened by the Board of Ordnance in 1805, its structure is similar to other British magazines of this period except for the fact that the exterior is more ornamented here than elsewhere (probably in deference to its setting) with a Palladian style portico and other features.

Bull Point was and is unusual in the unity and precise purpose of its design: rather than developing gradually over time, it was planned as a whole, and with a particular view to meeting the storage needs of emerging new types of artillery.

The buildings are mostly still in place within the MOD Bull Point RNAD site: all of one style, mostly ashlar with rock-faced dressings, they are said by English Heritage to comprise "both the finest ensemble in any of the Ordnance Yards and a remarkable example of integrated factory planning of the period".

[19] Building work on the Square Tower, Portsmouth, started in 1494; and from the end of the 16th century until 1779 it was used as a powder magazine, with a capacity of 12,000 barrels of gunpowder.

[20] The inhabitants of Portsmouth petitioned the Master General of the Ordnance in 1716 to remove the gunpowder, as they were worried about the hazards it posed to the town, but nothing was done at that time.

Magazine Cottage in Sedgeford was built during the 17th century by the Le Strange Family as a gunpowder store during the English Civil War.

In 1668, following the Dutch Raid on the Medway, Upnor Castle was reassigned from serving as an artillery fort to be 'a Place of Store and Magazine'.

The castle was recognized as unsuitable for this role as early as 1808 when a new magazine (since demolished) was built on an adjacent site; another, of similar design, was added in 1857.

Still more magazines were built close by at Lodge Hill, from 1898, primarily for storing the recently developed explosive cordite.

Upnor, Chattenden and Lodge Hill depots remained in military ownership until the mid-2010s, when the MOD marketed the land for housing and commercial use.

Like all the main buildings at Weedon, the magazines lie along the bank of a branch of the Grand Union Canal for ease of transport.

[29] The hexagonal Old Powder Magazine still stands near the ruins of the Charles Bathurst Smelt Mill in Arkengarthdale, North Yorkshire.

A gunpowder magazine was located near the site of the Low Well in the village of Barkip, also known as The Den, near Beith, North Ayrshire.

Dockra limestone quarry lies between Barrmill, Broadstone and Gateside and had two gunpowder magazines; the older one was built some distance from the works.

[35] The Pouther (Scots for Powder) House in Irvine (Map reference: NS 3238 3847), North Ayrshire, Scotland is a rare survival and was possibly first constructed in 1642, as records show that orders for large quantities of gunpowder were met in 1643, 1644, and 1646.

[37] When the Golffields wash-house was demolished in 1924, its slates were saved by Provost R M Hogg for restoration of the Powder House, a rescue assisted by Rev.

[39] A powder magazine was built into this large pre-existing earth mound at an unknown date and the site is now in a housing scheme.