GUNPOWDER TRAIL s l A guide to Faversham’s explosive past! l i M t We hope you have enjoyed this trail. If you would like to know more about r a h C Faversham, the history of its gunpowder industry and other aspects of its e d i s extraordinary past, why not browse through the picture postcards, books and n I : t f e booklets on sale at the Fleur de Lis Heritage Centre, Preston Street. l p o t ; s l l i M To learn more about Faversham you may like to join a Faversham t r a h Walking Tour led by an experienced guide. Tours operate every C f o r Saturday morning April to October inclusive. Meet at the Fleur de Lis o i r e t Heritage Centre at 10.30am and for a nominal fee history will be x E : t brought to life as you are guided around the town. h g i r p o T Faversham’s excellent range of visitor attractions also includes the town’s Fleur Museum, Preston Street, and the Shepherd Neame Visitor Centre, Top: Westbrook Walk along the banks of the stream. Bottom left: Powder barges on Oare Creek circa 1925 Court Street. This Gunpowder Trail is one in a series of leaflets promoting walking For further information, please contact: Faversham Tourist Information Centre, round Faversham and its environs. Besides being fun, walking is the Fleur de Lis Heritage Centre, 10-13 Preston Street, Faversham, ME13 8NS ideal way to explore the unspoilt delights of a town like Faversham Tel: (01795) 534542 Email: [email protected] with its many pedestrian-only areas. In total this circular trail is just over 2 miles and an easy walk with only a couple of small hills. It Located in the beautiful Kent countryside Faversham is a should take between 60 and 120 minutes. picturesque market town waiting to be discovered. The town and surrounding villages have excellent transport links and are easily reached from the M2, M20, A2 and Thanet Way. There are also fast mainline rail links from London, This leaflet has been produced by The Faversham Enterprise Partnership the Medway towns, Canterbury, Dover and Ramsgate. in association with: G Faversham Town Council G Faversham Society G Faversham Website G Shepherd Neame ESSEX M 2 5 A2 LONDON A28 Welcome to Faversham, Kent, one of southern England’s most FAVERSHAM 9 M 29 A253 M 9 A 2 2 2 8 5 2 0 2 A charming towns. Walking its tranquil byways today it’s hard to 2 A 9 A2 M 4 2 A2 THE FAVERSHAM SOCIETY A M2 A257 26 1 believe that for centuries Faversham was at the centre of the M 5 6 2 A 5 A M 2 2 2 0 8 A 5 6 2 nation’s explosives industry, supplying the British army and navy 2 2 A Original text by Arthur Percival. Additional text by Laurence Young. M A Design by Jane Hannath Design: 01795 533005, email: [email protected] KENT as they won an empire. Come and discover among its hundreds 9 A 2 M 20 2 2 A Portrait of Nelson courtesy of The National Maritime Museum, Greenwich Hospital Collection 1 0 2 A 0 7 8 0 2 2 of listed buildings the A 10/05 A 9 5 2 SUSSEX A traces of a fascinating past. Walk this trail and ignite your www.faversham.org Front cover clockwise: Stonebridge Pond, plaque on Stonebridge Lodge, packing canisters at Oare Works circa 1925, the former Custom House, and one of two cannons, until a few years ago embedded upright as bollards at Official website of the town and rural area. Award-winning the entrance to the Oare Works, now mounted outside the town’s swimming pools in the central car park. interest in Faversham’s heritage. compendium of Faversham’s life and times – community information, business directory, the essential guide for visitors. Visit our website @ www.faversham.org Visit our website @ www.faversham.org s e c o r p o t Use the numbers consecutively to follow the 5. 93 West Street, another late 17th-century house, was the boyhood s s e c Gunpowder Trail or devise your own walk home of William Drayson (1776-1863), son of the builder of the tower and o r p round the town centre and outskirts. m spire of Faversham Church. Following in his father’s footsteps, he was in o r m f u r e charge of building maintenance at the Home and Marsh Works and was later e s d u w M o 1. Fleur de Lis Heritage Centre, promoted to be Clerk of Works at the Waltham Abbey gunpowder factory. p & f e o r t s Preston Street is a good starting n d e a C o l point, 2 minutes’ walk from the central e 6. 68 West Street William Smith, who lived here 250 years ago, was r g i a e t i h t r car park and 4 from the mainline head-hunted to pioneer gunpowder manufacture in Bengal. He sailed on the e d H e t s i n station. Visit its museum to see a video Lord Anson in 1760 accompanied by scale models of works machinery. L u p e d s r on the local explosives industry. r e u t i e l a F w 7. 65 West Street was on the doorstep of the Home Works, so a succession e e h c T i v 2. 76 Preston Street (opposite the of workers lived here, among them in 1832 Thomas Haywood, a millwright. r e S Fleur de Lis) A 15th-century building elegantly refronted in red In former times the most important industries in mathematical tiles in the 18th century by local GP Edward Jacob. 8 & 9. Tanners Street Numbers 50 and 52 were built for factory staff Faversham were brewing, brickmaking and Welfare facilities at the government gunpowder factories were soon after the government nationalised the Home Works in 1759. No expense explosives. Shepherd Neame continue the town’s in advance of their time and staff and their families enjoyed was spared; they have splendid brickwork. Number 49 started life as an m a brewing tradition and there is still small-scale brick cheap healthcare. Dr Jacob was contracted to provide it. oasthouse: hops were grown nearby. Back in the 1770s it became an early h s r e v making; but the manufacture of explosives ceased in 1934 residential conversion. One of the first residents was a Sam Small whose job a F n i To work in this hazardous employ there is never a want of hands. Light when, with the clouds of World War II looming, all the gunpowder factories was to ‘dust’ gunpowder (screen finished grains for powder ‘dust’ that could s l l i m were closed, much of their machinery and staff transferring to a location at labour and constant pay are two strong inducements, easily prevailing be recycled). Further along the road, numbers 37 to 41 provided homes for e h t Ardeer in Ayrshire less vulnerable to attack from Europe. over the fear of danger, that by use is found to be little dreaded, especially as French refugee Huguenots; around 1700 Solomon Chabrand and Louis m o r f b the labourers are certain of proper care taken of them in all misfortunes. Chatwert were neighbours here. o r c e a d J w Edward Jacob, History of Faversham , 1774 Gunpowder manufacture was established in England at Bermondsey around d o r P a g w n 1530 and in Faversham about 1550. What attracted early gunpowder pioneers d i E t r r o D p to this area was the proximity of the sea for importing sulphur and saltpetre 3. 8 Preston Street (The Book Shop) A 16th-century building where S t s e (two of the three ingredients) and for exporting the finished product; plus members of the Grueber family once lived. Huguenot refugees from Lyon, they B s ’ l l a plenty of low-lying woodland, with alder and willow to make into charcoal played a big part in the local industry for over 100 years from 1684. H (the third ingredient) and streams to power the water-mills. While I was near this town some years ago, a most surprising accident happen’d, namely By the 1680s the Faversham industry was well established and the arrival of the blowing up of a powder-mill, which stood upon the river, close to the town. The blast skilled Huguenot refugees from France gave it fresh impetus. In 1759 the was not only frightful, but it shatter’d the whole town. Several people were killed in the t e e r t powder-house itself, tho’ not any, as I remember, in the town. But the most remarkable in S government established a factory of its own here. By 1786 there were three s r e powder factories in the Faversham area – the Home, the oldest, and the only it all was, that the oldest son of the master of the powder-mill, a youth of about 15 years of n n a T 1 age, who was not in the mill, or near it, when it blew up, but in a boat upon the river, one actually in the town, Oare, second-oldest, situated 1 /2 miles west of the n i s e town, and the Marsh, about 1 mile to the north west .