Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

Grade II listed building. Main construction periods 1789 to 1789

Monument Types

• SITE (Post Medieval - 1789 AD to 1789 AD)

Full description

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The following text is from the original listed building designation:
FAVERSHAM
TR 06 SW HAM ROAD
659/6/10029 Refining House (Building 19) at former
14-DEC-01 Marsh Gunpowder Works
GV II
Refining house at saltpetre refinery, part of gunpowder works, now store. 1789. Yellow brick with corrugated iron hipped roof.
PLAN: Rectangular single-cell plan.
EXTERIOR: Single storey, originally with flat heads each side, the SE front now with central inserted vehicle entry, blocked right-hand doorway; blocked doorways in each end.
INTERIOR: Timber trusses.
HISTORY: The Marsh works were part of the Royal Gunpowder Factory which was established outside Faversham in 1786 after an explosion in the town, to remove some of the more dangerous processes. They played an important part in the improvement of British gunpowder leading up to and during the Napoleonic Wars, under William Congreve. The saltpetre refinery was built in 1789 as part of Congreve's successful drive to improve the ingredients of British powder. It was privatised after the war, and closed in the 1920s.
The refining house was where saltpetre was treated to improve its consistency and quality, and is one of the two original refinery buildings on the site. It forms part of a discrete, coherent group of late C18-early C19 industrial buildings for refining saltpetre, the best preserved of this type in the country and comparable with French and Swedish examples.
(Wayne Cocroft, Dangerous Energy. The archaeology of gunpowder and military explosives manufacture. Swindon (English Heritage), 2000, pp. 54-67)

In 2019 an historic building recording of the former Marsh Gunpowder Works buildings now situated within the former Oare Mineral Works, Faversham, Kent was completed in advance of works to the designated and non- designated heritage assets. (2)

English Heritage, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest (Map). SKE16160.

<2> Headland Archaeology (UK) Ltd, 2019, Historic Building Recording of the Marsh Gunpowder Works within the Former Oare Mineral Works, Faversham, Kent (Unpublished document). SKE54278.

Sources and further reading

Related records