Visit to The Royal Gunpowder Mills, Waltham Abbey

Saturday, 16th August, 2003

Twenty-eight members of the High Country History Group and friends visited the Royal Gunpowder Mills. This was the first visit to the site for most of the party. At noon, the Group filled the land train, a tractor drawn trailer with seating, for the guided tour. A smaller party was left to board the following train. The site is 175 acres in extent and the land train takes about 45 minutes for the tour.

The first record of the Royal Gunpowder Mills dates from 1664. They were then privately owned. For the next 300 years the Mills at Waltham Abbey produced explosives of the highest quality, providing the necessary raw material for the promotion of this island’s naval and military campaigns during the long period of international supremacy.

Under protest from the owner, John Walton, the Crown bought the Mills in 1787 for £10,000. The action was taken to guarantee the supply of explosive at a critical time of international tension when other European powers threatened Britain’s rising trade. Between 1793 and 1814, the Napoleonic Wars necessitated an increase in the production of gunpowder from 5,000 to 25,000 barrels, amounting to 1,100 tons, per annum.

In 1863, following many years of unsuccessful manufacturing trials, the production of guncotton was perfected at Waltham Abbey. Output of guncotton rose to 250 tons per annum in 1872. Production of cordite started in 1891. With the introduction of these improved explosives the demand for gunpowder declined. However, new sites in Waltham Abbey were still needed for the new processes and were duly purchased.

During the Great War some 6,000 workers, half of them women, were employed there, working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Some ancestors of members of the High Country History Group were there during this time, with at least one walking daily to the Mills from Theydon Mount! In the years following, demand for the products declined, only for demand to be revived again both with the onset of the deterioration in international relations in the late 1930s and the development of further new explosives, such as RDX. The factory closed in July 1945 although the site continued as a research and development establishment, under various Ministry of Defence headings.

The site closed in 1991. Unsurprisingly, none of the earliest buildings have survived. Nevertheless, there still exists a remarkable collection of 250 buildings and structures. Many of these had been vacated or destroyed earlier in the life of the Mills. English Heritage list twenty-one of the remaining buildings. The Mills remain a fascinating display of the development of industrial processes, and demonstrate the supply of the power needed sustain them.

Please visit the Mills if you have not already done so. The site supports a cinema showing an excellent (noisy!) short film. There is a visitor centre, museum and other small exhibitions. There is plenty of space and there are walks through woodland and alongside the canals, so important for both transport and power through the site. Two thirds of the site is protected as a Site of Special Scientific Interest. The site supports a large heronry. If you have been to the Mills, then be encouraged to go again but note that opening times are restricted these days.

The Royal Gunpowder Mills can be contacted through the website www.royalgunpowdermills.com for further details.