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The Powder Magazines at Purfleet’,The Georgian Group Jounal, Vol

Peter Guillery and Paul Pattison, ‘The Powder Magazines at ’,The Georgian Group Jounal, Vol. VI, 1996, pp. 37–52

text © the authors 1996 THE POWDER MAGAZINES AT PURFLEET

Peter Guillery and Paul Pattison

n the north bank of the at the upper end of Long Reach, at Purfleet in , there is a substantial building of the 1760s (Fig. 1). From a distance it might be taken to be a stable block to a large country house. It is, in fact, virtually all that Bremains of Purfleet Magazine, an ordnance depot that was pivotal to British supply in the later Georgian and Victorian periods. This was a place where, had there ever been an explosion, damage might have extended into central ; “the powder stored there is enormous - enough in quantity to appal the boldest when they think of the chances of accident.”1 The outwardly simple building, the sole survivor of a row of five (Fig. 2), is an extraordinary structure; cavernous vaults within hold the earliest known surviving overhead travelling cranes. There are associated but fragmentary survivals nearby including a 1760s proof house. The site, though sadly mutilated, is an exceptional but neglected witness to the scale, organisation, technological ingenuity, and architectural quality of mid-18th-century military works. Among the more important functions of the Office of Ordnance from the mid 16th century onwards was the supply of gunpowder to both army and navy. Secure storage of this valuable, vulnerable and product was vital. However, early arrangements around the Thames estuary, near which virtually all of the nation’s gunpowder was manufactured and taken into store, were largely makeshift.2 The White Tower at the , the Office of Ordnance headquarters, served as the country’s principal until the 1660s.3 Greenwich Palace was also used as a magazine, with more extensive ordnance use following the abandonment of Charles H’s plans for rebuilding the palace around 1670. However, William and Mary’s grant of the former palace for transformation into the Royal Naval Hospital in 1694

Fig. 1. No. 5 Magazine from the southwest in 1994. RCHME, BB94/8189.

37 Fig. 2. Nos 1-5 Magazines, 1761-5, from the southwest in 1973. RCHME, BB73/6403. obliged the to make other arrangements.4 Furthermore, near misses, not least the Great Fire and the collapse of 2000 barrels of powder through the floors of the White Tower in 1691, had already made it clear that storage for gunpowder remote from the City of London was desirable.5 In 1694-6 a large new gunpowder magazine was built about half a mile downstream of Greenwich Hospital on the west side of the Greenwich Peninsula, on a site now known as Piper’s Wharf.6 Two more magazines were built at Fort in 1716,7 but Greenwich remained the Board’s central gunpowder store.8 The prominence and size of the Greenwich Magazine soon gave rise to alarm on the part of local inhabitants. Representations were made to Parliament in 1718 and the Board of Ordnance was directed to move it. This was not done. Limits were placed on the quantity of powder to be stored close to London,9 but in 1750 Greenwich inhabitants again protested “their very great uneasiness” about the magazine, perceiving that in the event of accident, sabotage or a strike by lightning “not only their Lives and Properties, but also that Superb Building the Royal Hospital of Seamen, and the Banks and Navigation of the River Thames would be inevitably destroyed.”10 In response William Skinner, John Peter Desmaretz, Justly Watson and Archibald Patoun, four senior Board of Ordnance , were sent to inspect Greenwich and to survey the riverside down to Gravesend with a view to finding a site fit for a new magazine. Reporting in January 1751 they confirmed the great risk that the Greenwich Magazine represented and said that they had found at Purfleet “a most proper place for erecting a Grand Magazine ... at the north end of Long Reach where generally the Men of War take in their Powder”.11 The site was suitable partly for its isolation; it contained only a riverside hamlet beside the confluence of a small tributary, the Mar Dyke, with the Thames. It comprised part of an area of old chalk workings and a scattered collection of cottages, gardens and a mill.12 The solid and dry chalk foundation, exceptional in a marshy region, would help preserve the powder, and, it was felt, so far downstream where the river is wide any accident would not seriously affect traffic on the

38 river.13 Two months later the House of Commons approved the making of an estimate for the removal of the magazine from Greenwich.14 It can perhaps be surmised that it was not simply concern for the people and buildings of Greenwich that prompted this decision, nor even the threat to the river itself. Moving gunpowder supplies down river made strategic sense as the military importance of the Tower, Deptford and dockyards receded and that of Chatham, Sheerness, and Plymouth grew.15 The Board may have felt no urgency in pursuing the externally imposed scheme during a period of peace. The matter was delegated to a committee of engineers in 1752 with Skinner as its president,16 but there was evidently no progress. Minds may have been concentrated in November 1754 when the Board decided to increase its stock of gunpowder in connection with plans to retake North American territory lost to the French.17 Whether linked to this or not it was in December 1754 that “Plans and Profiles” for a magazine at Purfleet to contain 17,460 barrels were presented, by Captain Desmaretz alone.18 This was about double the capacity of the Greenwich facility and three times that of .19 The magazine was to form the core of a garrisoned establishment including ancillary buildings and for 100 men and their officers. Based on these plans an estimate of £36,809.10.8 (including £11,000 for the purchase of land) was presented to the House of Commons.20 There was no further progress with the scheme for more than five years. The rapid descent into war with France, declared in 1756, made immediate supply and dispatch of gunpowder overseas a priority over storage. Demand for gunpowder was unprecedented and serious shortages were experienced; the Seven Years War proved to be a severe test of the Board of Ordnance’s ability to cope with its responsibilities for gunpowder supply.21 In 1759 the situation changed; military success allayed fear of invasion, Sir John Ligonier, MP (from 1756 Commander in Chief of land forces), was appointed Master General of the Ordnance, supplies of gunpowder that had been coming from the Netherlands to Tilbury ceased as Anglo-Dutch relations collapsed, and, in an unprecedented break with the previous practice of obtaining all the state’s gunpowder from private manufacturers, the Board of Ordnance acquired the Home Works at Faversham, , to manufacture its own gunpowder.22 At the same time much of the space in the Greenwich magazine was taken up with unserviceable stock.23 Against this background an Act of Parliament24 was passed in April 1760 permitting the Board of Ordnance to replace the Greenwich Magazine by buying and developing the land at Purfleet.25 Although gunpowder could not be stored indefinitely, it would have been perceived that a large capacity new magazine would help prevent a recurrence of some of the supply problems that had been encountered in the late 1750s - a case of preparing to fight the battle just completed. Construction started in 1761 and continued on a large scale through to 1769, and more perfunctorily on to 1773. However, gunpowder was being stored from late 1763 when two magazines were complete, and the other magazines appear to have been up by 1765.26 The 1754 plans had been significantly altered to provide a facility about three times as big, presumably reflecting the war-time difficulties. The five magazine buildings as completed had a capacity of 52,000 barrels, and expenditure on the building project (excluding purchase of land) between 1761 and 1773 was in the order of about £60,000.27 Each magazine could hold 10,400 barrels (460 tons) of gunpowder. To put this into dual perspectives, the Tilbury magazines each held 3,000 barrels, and, in the war years of 1755 to 1762 the Board of Ordnance supplied an average total of about 15,000 barrels a year.28 Purfleet was thenceforward the government’s main depot for gunpowder storage, easily the grandest purpose-built facility of its kind in England. It was a “great receiving house where every atom of powder used by the Government is landed, examined, tested, and if approved, passed into store”.29 From Purfleet gunpowder was distributed to the ordnance yards adjacent to the naval dockyards at Chatham, Sheerness, Portsmouth and Plymouth, to numerous garrisons, to naval bases overseas, to what became the Royal at

39 Woolwich, and for a time it even went further upstream to the Tower for the testing of small arms.30 Two men appear to have been principally responsible for the conception and design of Purfleet magazine, William Skinner and John Peter Desmaretz. William Skinner (1700-1780) began a successful career with the Board of Ordnance as a practitioner employed in the laying out of Morice Yard, Devonport, in 1720-22. From 1724 he rose through the ranks while based at Gibraltar, returning to Britain in 1747 to be the architect of Fort George at Ardersier, near Inverness.31 Built in 1747-69 Fort George was then the largest on the British mainland.32 From 1757 Skinner was the Chief Engineer of Great Britain and from 1761 he was a Major General.33 A link between Skinner and the Adam brothers can perhaps be invoked as an explanation for the refined quality of some of Purfleet’s architecture. The Adams built Fort George to Skinner’s “somewhat retardataire and Vanbrughian” designs,34 John Adam having succeeded his father William as Master Mason to the Board of Ordnance in North Britain in 1748.35 John Adam also built a powder magazine to designs by Skinner at in 1747-8.36 The Adams’ relationship with Skinner through the 1750s was close if tetchy.37 It may be that a design contribution at Purfleet from Skinner reflects his contact with the Adams, but there is nothing to suggest any direct involvement, however remote, on the part of the Adams themselves. John Peter Desmaretz also achieved high status as an Ordnance engineer, though he remains more obscure than Skinner. Early in his career, in 1717, Desmaretz surveyed Westminster, Chelsea and Kensington for a Board of Ordnance map.38 In 1731-4 and 1744-7 he was responsible for design work at Landguard Fort, near Harwich, .39 Comparatively pedestrian in its architectural character, this included enlargement of a barrack block, a house for the Lieutenant-Governor, and rebuilding of the fort’s main bastioned pentagon.40 In the 1740s Desmaretz was Chief Ordnance Draughtsman,41 and by 1753 he was serving as the Director of the Board’s First Division of engineers based at Portsmouth.42 Following the death of James Gibbs in August 1754 Desmaretz was appointed to the post of Architect of the Ordnance;43 and was thus newly-promoted when he presented the first plans for Purfleet. As an internal appointee he stood in marked contrast to his predecessor. By 1758 Desmaretz had reputedly become “old and infirm and had even had a recent apoplecic fit”.44 Nonetheless he was given charge of the Purfleet building project and was himself producing design sketches of an engineering nature for it in June 1760.45 He was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in 1761,46 only to be displaced as Architect of the Ordnance in 1762.47 The works at Purfleet, a very substantial building project for its time, were managed along the lines that had been established as general in the Board of Ordnance under the Duke of Marlborough in 1714.48 In 1763 Lieutenant Colonel James Gabriel Montresor replaced Desmaretz as the engineer in charge, working in lieu of a divisional engineer and receiving occasional assistance from Chief Engineer Skinner.49 From 1768 the works were completed under Captain Robert George Bruce.50 These men delegated to practitioner engineers (Nathan Minshall and Alexander Mercer), a draughtsman (William Parker, later promoted to engineer), and overseers (Euclid Alfray and John Edwards).51 Alexander Mercer may have been a relative of George Mercer, who had been Master Mason to the Board from 1734.52 Euclid Alfray was appointed to his post as an overseer in March 1761, succeeding Charles Hamilton who had been found to be “disordered in his mind.”53 Alfray was in turn dismissed in 1765 for “disobedience and disrespect” in a dispute over the measuring of copper work.54 He had been Henry Keene’s clerk in 1760 when he was portrayed with Keene, George Mercer, Joseph Pratt (see below) and others in a conversation piece by Robert Pyle.55 From 1761 Keene was himself linked to official military architecture in Ireland as what became “Architect to the Barrack Board” in Dublin.56 No evidence has been found to link Keene to Purfleet, and Alfray’s appointment does come relatively late, yet

40 Fig. 3. The main buildings at Purfleet in 1862. From PRO, SUPPLY 5/60, Book of Ordnance Plans, plan nos 12 and 13. it remains a possibility that Keene’s former assistant participated in the design process, perhaps another factor in accounting for the architectural quality of some of the Purfleet buildings. Contractors carried out the building work according to their particular trades. John Shakespear was responsible for the earthworks, James Morris for the carpentry, and Joseph Pratt and Thomas Churchill for bricklaying.57 These were established and substantial practitioners, reflecting the scale of the project. Few others would have been in a position to cope with such works. Smaller aspects of the work were done by others as follows: Mercer and Spriggs, masons; Stephen Remnant, smith; Thomas Lubton, glazier; Richard Troubridge, plumber; Samuel Freeman and Arthur Scaife, coppersmiths.58 The construction of the powder magazines required demolition of several existing buildings and the levelling of a broad strip of land adjacent to. the river; some ground may have been made up, and both the Thames bank and the Mar Dyke were, from 1760, furnished with strong timber revetments.59 East of and parallel to the magazine site is a prominent scarp, in excess of four metres in height, possibly an old chalk quarry edge which was straightened and landscaped during construction of the depot. The landscaping and wharfing permitted the erection of a highly coherent group of buildings (Fig. 3). The core of the site was formed into a

41 rectangular walled compound adjacent to the Thames which contained the five powder magazines, a cooperage, several empty-barrel stores and various equipment sheds.60 There were water pumps and wells between and outside the ends of each magazine.61 Along the western side of the magazine compounds there were, and still are, river walls with cast-iron railings and a projecting central landing stage for the use of powder barges, not complete until after 1767.62 Adjoining the eastern side of the magazines a second walled compound formed a triangle minus its corners running up the steep slope of the former quarry edge and onto higher, flat ground. This compound contained a large garden, with a proof house (H) near the centre magazine at the bottom, and the Storekeeper’s House (Ordnance House) at the apex. On the southeast side of the garden there was a clock tower along the inner security wall. Within and beyond an outer security wall there were cottages for clerks, labourers’ barracks, military barracks and workshops.63 The principal survival, No. 5 Powder Magazine (Fig. 1), was the southernmost of the group of five large gunpowder magazines. The origins of the building type of which it is an outstanding example may lie with Vauban and 17th-century French magazines. Adoption and dissemination of a standard magazine type in Britain appear to follow from the 1716 establishment at the Tower of London of the Ordnance Drawing Room.64 Early-18th-century magazines at Tilbury Fort,65 Berwick,66 and Morice Yard, Devonport,67 have a common form and construction; that is, they are rectangular with raised floors for ventilation, double-skinned vented walls, and brick barrel-vaults under pitched roofs. Skinner’s Grand Magazine at Fort George of 1757-9 is another example of the type, even more closely comparable to Purfleet in some of its details.68 Though standard in form, the Purfleet magazines were without precedent in their scale, number, and functional refinement. In the 1770s the Board of Ordnance built more powder magazines at Priddy’s Hard, Portsmouth, and these, while comparable in many respects, are again more modest in their overall and particular scale.69 In common with other early powder magazines the Purfleet buildings are distinguished by their solidity of construction. Eighteenth-century engineers generalized a perceived threat of

Fig. 4. Survey plan, section and elevation of a powder magazine at Purfleet, 1826. PRO, WORK 43/108.

42 Fig. 5. No. 5 Magazine, north aisle from the west in 1994. RCHME, BB94/8159.

Fig. 6. No. 3 Magazine, undated design drawing showing an east-west section through the vaults. BL, K.Top., XIII, fol. 48e.

43 bombardment and met it through sheer mass. By the early 19th century magazines, unless expected to be subjected to bombardment, were smaller and lighter structures separated by earthworks. It came to be accepted that an explosion would simply necessitate the replacement of a single cheap unit.70 No. 5 Magazine (Fig. 1) measures 151ft by 52ft 6in. and is 16ft tall to the eaves (Fig. 4). It has brown-brick walls laid to Flemish bond with struck joints and tooled Portland stone dressings. It has a vast shallow-pitched slate roof. In keeping with its function it has little architectural embellishment. Its style has been described as a survival of the Board of Ordnance style of the period 1715 to 1724, attributed to Nicholas Hawksmoor,71 at least in respect of the classically treated gable ends, that to the west giving prominently onto the River Thames. The stone gable copings are returned horizontally at their bases to suggest open pediments, within which are semi-circular lunettes, Fig. 7. No. 4 Magazine, south aisle from the west in formerly fully louvred (Fig. 4), but blocked up in 1973 showing timber wall lining and overhead crane stock brick in the 19th or early 20th century, with gantry. RCHME, BB73/6416. leaving small square louvred openings. At the centre of each elevation there is a small flat-roofed porch. Flanking the gable-end porches there are small windows, all blocked. The long elevations are unfenestrated and have dentilled eaves without gutters. Excepting the porches only ventilation slits articulate these walls, twelve to each side. The 5ft 3 in.-thick walls are made up of a double skin of brick, to maintain an even temperature inside the building. Internally the building remains largely as built (Fig. 5). It is divided as two long brick barrel-vaulted aisles, each 19ft wide and 17ft from floor to head of vault (Fig. 6). At the east and west ends groined cross vaults link the aisles. The aisles are separated down the centre of the building by a 4ft-thick brick wall within which there are nine round- headed openings, that to the centre wider for a passage linking the north and south entrances, presumably to facilitate circulation between the magazines. Fig. 8. Overhead travelling crane, reconstructed isometric detail.

44 Fig. 9. No. 5 Magazine, roof space in 1994. RCHME, BB94/8162. The aisles were sub-divided into storage compartments, known as bins or lots, by softwood timber partitions which have recendy been partially reconstructed. These partitions were open, each simply constituted by four timber studs. These studs were tenoned into floor plates and beams fixed into the brickwork across the vaults. Each aisle was twelve bays long (excluding the central north-south passage), and each bay was sub-divided into two bins by longitudinal passages. Thus there were originally 48 bins; these are numbered on the tie beams. When full, each bin, about 10ft 6in. by 9ft, and about 9ft tall, would have contained 200 barrels (with 400 extra somehow squeezed in at each end) .72 The barrels were stacked to the height of the beams.73 Many precautions were taken to prevent accidental ignition of or damage to the gunpowder. Iron was entirely avoided. Everywhere there are timber pegs in lieu of nails or bolts. The timber inner doors were copper sheathed and the timber ventilation slit surrounds were copper-lined. Fragments of this copper lining survive, and the east inner door and surround retain the numerous nail holes for the fixing of the copper sheeting.74 The internal brick walls are part-lined with pegged softwood timber boards to ensure that powder barrels were kept out of contact with the brick walls (Fig. 7). The timber floor has wide boards, some irregularly laid, leaving narrow gaps, in places lin. wide, for the better circulation or air and the avoidance of damp.75 There appears also to have been underfloor ventilation by means of brick ducts, parts of which were visible in 1994 at the base of the south porch. A notably early system of mobile overhead cranage survives in J^o. 5 Magazine (Figs 4, 6, 7 and 8). The overhead travelling crane moving on a track or gantry within a building became a standard feature of industrial buildings in the 19th century. Its origins have been traced to John Rennie’s mahogany sheds at the West India Docks of 1816-18.76 The cranage system at Purfleet,

45 which is a full 50 years earlier, appears to be an unrelated precursor of the main evolutionary line of overhead travelling crane development. The principal and crucial functional difference is that the Purfleet cranes were seemingly not designed to travel under load. It is clear that Purfleet’s is not an isolated usage, though it is apparently a unique survival. There is evidence for similar cranage in other Board of Ordnance powder magazines, at Morice Yard, Devonport, perhaps from as early as 1744, at Priddy’s Hard from the 1770s, as well as at the Tower of London.77 The Purfleet cranes are entirely timber built and were designed to run longitudinally in the vaults along each aisle. Housed just above the springing of the vaults are the 8 Yun.-square beams into the soffits of which the stud partitions are tenoned. Into these beams are halved the grooved base rails of the crane gantries. At the head of the vault are the grooved upper or guide rails, braced by diagonal struts tenoned into lengths of timber pegged on top of the beams. The approximately 140ft-long rails have stop-splayed and tabled edge-halved scarf joints with wedge pieces. These gantries support the crane frames, simple square assemblies within which the crane posts pivot allowing the jibs to swing from side to side. Tenons on the frame posts pass through the frame rails and fit into the grooves of the base and guide rails. The lower frame rails have recesses for four small timber wheels to run along the base rails.78 There is no visible evidence for the method by which the cranes were moved. They were undoubtedly manually powered and probably simply pushed along by a labourer on the gantry. The crane frames which survive in position, two to each aisle, all appear to be secondary. Marked as I1/? cwt capacity and as having been tested and therefore still in use in 1951, they have chamfered arrises and triangle blocks in the corners of the frame for rigidity and appear to be of 19th-century construction. However, other frames of very similar form resting on the floor look earlier and are possibly original. These have outer braces from the frame posts to the lower rails. To judge from photographs of such frames in situ in 1973 (Fig. 7), these appear to have been salvaged from the demolished magazines. The copper-hooped powder barrels, each weighing about lOOlbs (or 501b half-barrels), were wheeled down the aisles on copper barrows.79 The cranes were probably only used for stacking, not to carry barrels from bay to bay. The small windows in the east and west walls were timber shuttered and possibly covered with perforated copper sheeting. Light was refracted from these windows, the doorways and the ventilation slits by means of small copper plates. Any form of lamp was firmly prohibited.80 Latterly electric light was introduced. The long large roof is one of the building’s most impressive features (Figs 1 and 9). However, as Montresor explained following the collapse of a roof bay in 1766, “the Roofing is only a Cover to the Arches of the Brickwork”.81 The draining off of rainwater is an obvious and essential function of the roof, but it does seem that the magazines might have served their purpose full well with somewhat less above the vaults. There is sand on top of the vaults up to tie­ beam level which was clearly intended to stifle the effects of bombardment. The timber frame of the roof is an unusual and distinctive piece of carpentry, heavily and densely built (Figs 4 and 9). All the roof timbers are assembled with wooden pegs and exhibit undisrupted number sequences. As elsewhere in the building no iron is used. This may explain the density and eccentricity of the roof s construction as by the 1760s carpenters had come to rely on iron straps to reinforce large roof trusses, although the aim of achieving safety through solidity may have caused some over specification. The 17 trusses, closely spaced at 9ft 4in. intervals, are of suspended king-post construction.82 The tie beams are just above the heads of the brick vaults; four trusses are given additional support from the spine wall by short posts under the king posts. The outer ends of the tie beams meet the rafters well inside and above the outer walls, with purlins over, and plates under bearing on to brick plinths which rest on the vaults. The beams span 33ft 8in. over a building that is 52ft 6in. wide. The king posts are doubly joggled, that is, not

46 Fig. 10. The Proof House, cl765 (from 1781 the copper hoop store, and in 1996 Purfleet Play Centre), from the southwest in 1994. RCHME, BB94/8149. only is the post wider at its base for struts to the heads of outer posts, as is common, but, most unusually, the posts widen at mid-height to receive upper struts to the principals. The trusses are further stiffened at their angles - at their outer ends by short timbers halved across the outer faces of the principals and the ties, and near their heads by collars across the outer faces. There are four rows of purlins. All but those at tie-beam level rest on the principals and are held in position by wedges pegged to the upper sides of the principals. Copper lightning conductors at the gable ends were an original fitting (Fig. 4) ,83 To the northeast of No. 5 Magazine a proof house (alternatively “Flashing House’) was built c.1765, although from 1781 it was used as a copper hoop store (Figs 3 and 10) ,84 Architecturally it is of a piece with the magazines. Approximately cubic and apparently two storeys, it is in fact a tall single-storey building. To the west, towards the magazines and the River Thames, it has a gable end with the same open pediment and blind semi-circular lunettes as the magazines. The north and south return elevations each have three bays with double-height round-headed sash windows in the centre, flanked by ground-floor sashes with square blind openings above. To the east, closely abutting the steep scarp, is an unfenestrated elevation, originally quite blind, into which a simple central door has been inserted. A slight break forward in the centre narrows from a broad base into another pseudo-pedimental gable. This block appears originally to have been a single tall space, possibly galleried to north and south, to judge from the survival of what appear to be early stone corbels. A suspended ceiling obscures the upper part of this much-altered interior. Proving or testing gunpowder in the 1760s involved flashing, that is “burning a small quantity on a glass, porcelain or copper plate. . . If the powder has been properly incorporated it will “flash” or puff when touched with a hot iron. . . A badly incorporated powder will give rise to a quantity of sparks”.85 This was done only

47 Fig. 11. The Storekeeper’s House, 1767 (later Ordnance House), from the east in 1973 shortly before demolition. RCHME, 6/1248. occasionally in pre-arranged sessions and would have been carried out by skilled but relatively low ranking staff on the well-lit working floor using an oven or stove at one end, in this case probably to the east. If there were galleries they would probably have been to allow officers to watch the process from a safe distance. The height of the space would have allowed the sulphurous fumes to disperse upwards; there was apparently a “Door in the Roof’.86 Attached to the west there are low single-storey outbuildings, a hip-roofed passage linking the building to the magazine compound, and a shed on its north side, possibly additions of 1781 when the proof house was converted to be a copper hoop store.87 This early change of use may have been due as much or more to general concern about standards of proof as to the proximity of the building to the magazines. Gunpowder proving techniques changed significantly after 1780, through the use of actual ordnance, mortars for large grained powder and muskets for small grained powder, a distinction not previously adopted. These changes were implemented largely through the influence of Major William Congreve, who as deputy, and acting comptroller of the Royal Laboratory at Woolwich from 1783, was given responsibility for the proof of powder at Purfleet amongst other new duties.88 A proof house was built to the south of the magazines in 1785-6 and a carbine proof house and new flashing house went up in 1796-7 in the same general area.89 Between 1816 and 1862 another proof house and a proof range were built alongside the Mar Dyke outside the outer security wall to the north (Fig. 3).90 Of these later

48 proving facilities no traces survive. The Storekeeper’s House (later known as Ordnance House), completed in 1767, was one of the site’s principal buildings (Figs 3 and 11), built to include a Board Room and an office.91 It was demolished following damage due to a fire in 1972.92 The Storekeeper, from Edward Nickson,93 was the senior Board of Ordnance employee on the site. The inner security walls that linked the Storekeeper’s House to the magazine compound survive along most of the north-east and south-east sides of the garden compound and for a short section of its western side, adjacent to the proof house, where they separated the magazine and garden compounds (Figs 3 and 10). These walls are predominantly red brick in English bond, uniformly exceeding 10ft in height, buttressed at regular intervals both internally and externally, and finished with simple inverted V-shaped coping. At what was the south-eastern entrance through the inner security wall into the garden is the clock and bell tower (Figs 3 and 12), apparently built in 1767-8 following a request from officers on site that “a publick Clock would be useful”.94 It appears to have been sited so as to have been visible and audible from barracks and other on-site dwellings to the south, as well as from the magazine compound. The tower projects from the outside face of the wall with an arcaded lower stage, with round arches except to the garden where there is a segmental arch. The side arches appear to have been open originally, and blocked at an early date. The front and rear arches remain open; both had gates, one pair now mounted on a side wall. Originally there may only have been gates closing the inner arch, where the upper pintle sockets and the stone block that received the stop bolts survive; the outer arch imposts and plinths have been cut for the insertion of a gate frame. The clock in the upper stage and the bell turret have been restored since 1973.95 There is a similar segmental-arched opening, also formerly gated, into the garden site in the north-east security wall. Other early buildings do not survive. To the south seven cottages in two short rows that had been acquired with the site in 1761 were initially occupied by those engaged in the works, later by the magazine clerks.96 To the east of these cottages there was a long barrack block, built in'1764-6 and extended in 1777, to accommodate magazine labourers.97 A 1764 design drawing suggests

Fig. 12. The Clock Tower, 1767-8, and inner Fig. 13. Design drawing for labourer’s tenements, 1764. security BL, K.Top., XIII, fol. 48n.

49 that it may have been a row of back-to-back dwellings (Fig. 13). Two further barrack blocks for labourers were added in 1778 and 1796-7, outside the outer security wall to the north.98 A permanent military guard comprising a sergeant and 12 men was dispatched to Purfleet in 1763.99 It is not clear where the guard was lodged initially. However, the force grew significandy and military barracks for three officers and 100 men were built to the east of the Storekeeper’s House in 1796-7.100 Two short lengths of the outer security wall that formerly enclosed these barracks survive along what is now called Tank Hill Road. There were other peripheral buildings within the outer security wall. To the south there was a block built in 1768 which comprised a smith’s shop, an engine room, a small hospital and a surgery. To the north were a stable and coach house built in 1768 and a carpenter’s shop built in 1769, together with two cottages added in 1775, and other workshops added in 1802-4.101 Finally, there are still the much altered remains of a large earthen traverse immediately north of what was the north end of the magazine compound (Fig. 3). This was apparently made to separate and protect the magazine from a powder examining house built in 1805.102 At present the mound is cl08ft long and c33ft wide at its base, rising to a narrow summit cl Oft high, but it has been affected by recent construction works. Purfleet Powder Magazine continued to expand and develop well into the 20th century, though the heart of the depot remained very little altered. Its later history, though of interest, is not discussed here. The establishment closed in 1962 and four of the five 1760s magazines were amongst buildings cleared soon after 1973.103 Most of the site has since been redeveloped for housing. The original proof house is now used as the Purfleet Play Centre.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This article has been prepared on behalf of the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England and arises from a survey carried out in 1994 as part of a programme of work aimed at improving awareness of the historic environment in the area known for planning purposes as . A survey report, in some respects more detailed than this article, is available through the National Monuments Record (TQ 57 NW 59). For the purposes of this article metric survey measurements have been converted to imperial measurements. We wish to thank colleagues upon whose contributions this article depends. Photographic work was carried out by Dank Silva, and Wayne Cocroft has advised on aspects of and sources on the history of the munitions industry. Fig. 3 was prepared by Trevor Pearson and Fig. 8 by Andrew Donald, the latter based on measured survey by Caroline D’UrseL Finally, we are grateful to Mr Alan Gosling for affording us access to No. 5 Magazine. All illustrations are Crown copyright except Figs 6 and 13 which are copyright of the .

NOTES 1. “The Powder Magazines at Purfleet”, The Engineer, XVIII, 21 October 1864, 352. 2. Jonathan G. Coad, The Royal Dockyards: 1690 to 1850, Aidershot, 1989, 245-8; Wayne D. Cocroft, “The Munitions Industry”, Thames Gateway: Recording Historic Buildings and Landscapes on the Thames Estuary, Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England [hereafter RCHME], Swindon, 1995, pp. 89-90. 3. H. C. Tomlinson, and Government: The Ordnance Office under the later Stuarts, London, 1979, 118-9; information kindly provided by Geoffrey Parnell. 4. O. F. G. Hogg, The Royal Arsenal: its Background, Origin, and Subsequent History, I, London, 1963, 105-7. 5. Cocroft, loc. cit. . 6. Hogg, loc. cit.; Greenwich Local History Library, Martin Collection 2385, A Plan of the King’s Lands Adjoining to the Powder Magazine below Greenwich, 1720. 7. Tomlinson, op. cit., 120. The Tilbury magazines survive in a greatly altered form and are open to the public. 8. In the late 17th century Castle and parts of Windsor Castle had been adapted to be powder magazines as, somewhat later, was Gravesend . Woolwich Warren (the Royal Arsenal from 1805) grew in significance as an ordnance depot from the late 17th century onwards, but it was not an important site for gunpowder storage [Tomlinson, op. cit., 120-2]. 9- Hogg, op. cit., 107-8; Jenny West, Gunpowder, Government and War in the Mid-Eighteenth Century, London, 1991, 21. 10. London, Public Record Office [hereafter PRO], WO 47/36, 408-9. The Royal Naval Hospital was not finally completed until 1752. 11. PRO, WO 47/37, 52-3. 12. A fine collection of early topographical views, maps, sketches and drawings relating to the site survives in the British

50 Library. These include a view of Purfleet in 1752, engraved by John Boydell, and a detailed Board of Ordnance survey of the site prior to its redevelopment [British Library, King’s Topographical Collection (hereafter BL, K. Top.), XIII, fols 48a-48b]. The earlier history of the site has been considered elsewhere [Gordon Watson, “The Rural Industries of , Part 2: The Purfleet Quarries, 1554-1850”, Thurrock Local History Journal, 1979, 68-85]. 13. PRO, WO 47/37, 52-3. 14. PRO, WO 47/37, 463; WO 55/354, 8. 15. Tomlinson, op. cit., 118-121; Coad, op. cit., passim. 16. The Dictionary of National Biography, XVIII, Oxford, 1888-89, 350-51. 17. West, op. cit., 33. 18. PRO, WO 47/44, 318. The drawings submitted at this stage have not been identified. 19. Hogg, op. cit., 107; Tomlinson, op. cit., 120. 20. PRO, WO 47/44, 366; WO 55/355, 37. 21. West, op. cit., 5-6, 36, 57, 71-2,119. 22. West, op. cit., 18, 49-53; Wayne D. Cocroft, “Oare Gunpowder Works, Faversham, Kent”, Faversham Papers, XXXIX, 1994. In 1787 the Royal Gunpowder was established at on the River Lea [RCHME, The Royal Gunpowder Factory, Waltham Abbey, Essex, 1994]. 23. West, op. cit., 69-70. 24. 33 Geo. II, c.ll. 25. PRO, WO 47/55, 62, 520; WO 47/56, 208, 215. 26. PRO, WO 47/57-73, passim; WO 48/340, fols 126, 148,174; WO 48/341, fols 19, 55, 96, 137,178; WO 48/342, fols 18, 54, 89,126, 162,196. 27. PRO, WO 48/340, loc. cit.; WO 48/341, loc. cit.; WO 48/342, fols 18, 54, 89, 126, 162, 196. 28. Coad, op. cit., 246; Victoria County History:Essex [hereafter VCH], VIII, 1983, 69; West, op. cit., 33. 29. The Engineer, loc. cit. 30. Coad, op. cit., 248; Cocroft, “The Munitions Industry”, loc. cit.; VCH, loc. cit.; West, op. cit., 33. 31. The Dictionary of National Biography, loc. cit. 32. Historic Scodand, Fort George, Edinburgh, 1988. 33. The Dictionary of National Biography, loc. cit. 34. John Fleming, Robert Adam and His Circle, London, 1962, 90. 35. Ibid, 84. 36. John Gifford, Colin McWilliam and David Walker, The Buildings of : Edinburgh, London, 1991, 102. 37. Fleming, op. cit., 86, 102. 38. PRO, MPH 258, reproduced as end papers in Annabel Croft and Peter Jackson, Kensington and Chelsea, London, 1987. 39. Information kindly provided by Richard Hewlings. 40. Charles Trollope, “The Defences of Harwich”, Fort, XI, 1983, 5-28. 41. Information kindly provided by Geoffrey Parnell. 42. PRO, WO 47/44, passim. 43. Howard Colvin, A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects, 1600-1840, 3rd edition, London, 1995, 1150. 44. George Mercer to Robert Adam, as quoted in Fleming, op. cit., 256. Adam was angling to succeed Desmaretz as Architect of the Ordnance through his connections with Skinner. 45. PRO, WO 47/56, 356. Design sketches for the wharfmg of the magazine site are dated June 1760 and initialled JPD [BL, K. Top. XIII, fols 48k-481]. Other extant design drawings are unsigned and only a few are dated, variously 1764, 1767 and 1768 [BL, K. Top, XIII, fols 48c-48cc]. 46. PRO, WO 47/58, 185. 47. He was succeeded by the sons of Sir Charles Frederick, Surveyor-General of the Ordnance, for whom the post appears to have been a sinecure [Colvin, op. cit., 1150]. 48. Nigel Barker, “The Building Practice of the English Board of Ordnance”, in John Bold and Edward Chaney (eds.), English, Architecture Public and Private, London, 1993, 199, 210. 49. PRO, WO 47/61, 434; WO 47/69, 152; WO 47/71, 27, 212-13. 50. PRO, WO 47/71, 277; WO 47/73, 261. 51. PRO, WO 47/57, 114-5; WO 48/340, loc. cit. 52. Information kindly provided by Richard Hewlings. 53. PRO, WO 47/56, 430-1; WO 47/57,154-5. 54. PRO, WO 47/65, 81. 55. Country Life, March 30 1945, 556; information kindly provided by Richard Hewlings. 56. Colvin, op. cit., 571. 57. PRO, WO 47/66, 234; WO 48/340-2, loc. cit. 58. Idem.

51 59. BL, K Top., XIII, fols 48b, 48c, 48k, 481, 48p-48t. 60. BL, OSD Sheet 133, 3" to 1 mile, 1799. 61. PRO, SUPPLY 5/60, Book of Ordnance Plans, plans nos 12 and 13, surveyed 1862. 62. BL, KTop., XIII, fol. 48o. 63. BL, OSD Sheet 133, 3” to 1 mile, 1799; PRO, WO 55/1604, Return of Ordnance Buildings at Purfleet Powder Magazine, Freehold’ Property, 1816; WO 55/2334, Statement of Storehouses, Magazines, Workshops, etc, the property of the Ordnance at Purfleet, 1806. 64. Information kindly provided by Geoffrey Parnell. 65. Andrew D. Saunders, Tilbury Fort, London, 1990, 13. 66. BL, KTop., XXXII, fols 46, 47f; PRO, MPHH/703 (21 and 23) [Richard Hewlings drew our attention to this building]. 67. Coad, op. cit., 253-5. 68. Historic Scotland, op. cit., 20; Historic Scotland Photographic Library, G5753-3/4 and G6098-24. 69. Coad, op. cit., 260-3. 70. Idem. 71. Richard Hewlings, “Hawksmoor’s ‘Brave Designs for the Police’”, in Bold and Chaney, op. cit., 228. 72. The Engineer, loc. cit. T5. PRO, WORK 43/108. 74. BL, KTop., XIII, fol. 48i. 75. The north aisle of No. 5 Magazine has been refloored. 76. R. S. Fitzgerald, “The Anatomy of a Victorian Crane: the Coburg Boiler Shop Crane and its Technological Context , Industrial Archaeology Review, XII(2) Spring 1990, 185-204; RCHME, Survey of London, XLIII, Poplar, Blackwall and the Isle ofDogs: the Parish of all Saints, London, 1994, 304-5. 77. Coad, op. cit., 255, 262; RCHME, National Monuments Record, report on Priddy’s Hard, 1994 (Buildings Index No. 92346); information kindly provided by Geoffrey Parnell. 78. There may be a reference to these in January 1764: “Ordered a warrant of justification to Mr Tidd for the Wheels, Pins and Sheaves turned by him as desired by Mr Nickson at Purfleet” [PRO, WO 47/63, 38]. 79. The Engineer, loc. cit.;VCH, loc. cit. 80. The Engineer, loc. cit. 81. PRO, WO 47/68, 117. 82. Other magazines may have had queen-post trusses (Fig. 6). 83. PRO, WO 48/342, fol. 162. 84. PRO, WO 47/70, 87-8; WO 55/1604; WO 55/2334: BL, KTop., XIII, fol. 48d-48e. 85. W. H. Wardell, Handbook of Gunpowder and Guncotton, London, 1888, 64. 86. PRO, WO 47/69, 347. There may have been an earlier and similar “Flashing House” at Greenwich. A roughly cubic three-bay building with what appears as a tall louvred conical roof and a single tall stack appears in a 1736 engraving, abutting the 1690s powder magazine there [Greenwich Local History Library, Martin Collection 1182, The Powder Magazine near Greenwich]. 87. PRO, WO 55/1604; WO 55/2334. 88. West, op. cit., 177-184. 89. PRO, WO 55/1604; WO 55/2334. 90. PRO, SUPPLY 5/60; WO 55/1604. 91. PRO, WO 47/70, 87-8. 92. VCH, loc. cit. 93. PRO, WO 47/57, 132. 94. PRO, WO 47/69, 234. The clock was made by Aynsworth Thwaites, the bell by Lester and Pack [PRO, WO 48/341, fol. 178]. 95. RCHME, NMR, neg. no. BB73/6419. 96. PRO, WO 55/1604; WO 55/2334; BL, KTop., XIII, fols 48b, 48d. 97. PRO, WO 47/63,142; WO 55/1604; WO55/2334; Watson, op. cit., 12. 98. PRO, WO55/1604; WO 55/2334. 99. PRO, WO 47/62, 151-2. 100. PRO, WO 55/1604; WO 55/2334. 101. Idem. 102. Idem. 103. VCH, loc. cit; RCHME, NMR, BB73/6396-6419.

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