1850 - 1900

By 1863 the Glazing House had been extended and enclosed within a massive blast wall, which bridged the leat (canal) by two large arched openings.

The Oare works secured a continuing certificate in 1876, following the passing of the ‘Explosives Act’ in the previous year, and a test range and laboratory were subsequently built in newly-created woodland to the west.

Glazing barrels at Waltham Abbey in the late nineteenth century

A copy of W.B Robertson’s, description of the Gunpowder works of John Hall & Son at Faversham, was published by Cassell & Co Ltd in 1899 under the title of ‘Where Gunpowder is Made...’.

“Take the factory of Messrs. John Hall and Son, Limited, the oldest and biggest, and, according to expert opinion, among the best arranged we have. To the passing observer it resembles a game reserve, so well fenced in, thickly wooded, and noiseless are the grounds. Yet within there are 150 different buildings, many with machinery at work day and night, and 300 employees go daily in and out of the gates.

The buildings, which are one-storeyed, for the most part lie in hollows and wide apart, the rising ground round them confining the lateral effects of possible explosions, and the distance between them preventing an explosion in one from being communicated in any way to another.”

Cartridge filling in 1899

Cartridge filling is done by women, and under all safeguards we have seen adopted in the powder houses. The part they play is purely mechanical; nothing is left to their judgement by reason of the perfect appliances used in the process, which, though interesting, no description apart from diagrammatic illustration could render intelligible.

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Visit Oare Gunpowder Works
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Faversham Society

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