Details
MARCHWOOD
1860/5/38 MAGAZINE LANE
21-MAY-85 Blast wall around rebuilt magazine at
former Royal Naval Armaments Depot, 25
0m west of Entrance Lodge
GV II
Blastwall. 1814. Red brick Portland stone coping. Surrounds
rebuilt (unlisted) magazine. Gateways to N (blocked) and S, each flanked
by square piers with round-headed recessed panels surmounted by slightly
projecting panels. D magazine, which this blast wall related to, was destroyed through enemy action in 1940. The walls were subject to some alteration in 1990s when Hawkins Court was built.
HISTORY: Marchwood was conceived in 1811 as a store depot like Tipner (Porstmouth). Potential canal communications from Southampton water were the Redbridge-Andover, Northampton-Winchester and Bursledon-Botley navigations. This was to be a 20,000 barrel magazine with two 10,000 barrel magazines the preferred disposition. In the event, and after deliberation resulting the adoption of submitted in 1811 by Sir William Congreve over those by General Fisher (commanding officer of the Portsmouth Royal Engineers' Department), 3 magazines each with a 6,800 capacity were built, with a small internal L-shaped channel for moving barrels by barge and a centrally-placed Shifting House. The shortcomings revealed through the Crimean War brought about the decision to increase storage capability, and additional magazines were built at Marchwood, Tipner and Upnor. In July 1853, the CRE Portsmouth had been asked to prepare a report on the expense of making Marchwood serviceable again. The magazines were ordered in September to be made fit to receive powder from Dover, and in November the floor of No. 3 Magazine was ordered to be made good before the establishment was re-established as a Powder Station and Officers appointed. This, effectively the second foundation of Marchwood, was marked by a vast increase in its storage, four new magazines, three of 14,400 and one of 9,600 barrels capacity being built in 1856-7. A Times article of 1864 noted that Marchwood was 'the largest magazine in the Kingdom', with a capacity of 76,000 barrels of powder. The establishment began to be wound down soon afterwards, there being 45 employees in 1898. B, E, F and G magazines were destroyed by the Luftwaffe in June 1940, and the Admiralty's use of the depot declined steeply after 1945: it was closed in 1961.
(Roger Bowdler, Former Board of Ordnance Gunpowder Magazines, Magazine Lane, Marchwood, Hampshire, Historical Analysis and Research Team, English Heritage, 1997)
