Office, Stores and House (Building 10) At Former Marsh Gunpowder Works
OFFICE, STORES AND HOUSE (BUILDING 10) AT FORMER MARSH GUNPOWDER WORKS, HAM ROAD
Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places
Overview
- Heritage Category:
- Listed Building
- Grade:
- II
- List Entry Number:
- 1389584
- Date first listed:
- 14-Dec-2001
- List Entry Name:
- Office, Stores and House (Building 10) At Former Marsh Gunpowder Works
- Statutory Address:
- OFFICE, STORES AND HOUSE (BUILDING 10) AT FORMER MARSH GUNPOWDER WORKS, HAM ROAD
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Location
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Discover moreOfficial list entry
- Heritage Category:
- Listed Building
- Grade:
- II
- List Entry Number:
- 1389584
- Date first listed:
- 14-Dec-2001
- List Entry Name:
- Office, Stores and House (Building 10) At Former Marsh Gunpowder Works
- Statutory Address 1:
- OFFICE, STORES AND HOUSE (BUILDING 10) AT FORMER MARSH GUNPOWDER WORKS, HAM ROAD
The scope of legal protection for listed buildings
This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.
Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.
For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.
The scope of legal protection for listed buildings
This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.
Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.
For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.
Location
- Statutory Address:
- OFFICE, STORES AND HOUSE (BUILDING 10) AT FORMER MARSH GUNPOWDER WORKS, HAM ROAD
The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.
- County:
- Kent
- District:
- Swale (District Authority)
- Parish:
- Faversham
- National Grid Reference:
- TR 01317 62734
Details
FAVERSHAM
TR 06 SW HAM ROAD
659/6/10027 Office, stores and house (Building 10)
14-DEC-01 at former Marsh Gunpowder Works
GV II
Office, store, house and pump house at saltpetre refinery within gunpowder works, partly disused. 1810-15. Yellow Flemish bond brick with brick stacks and tiled hipped roof.
PLAN: Double-depth plan house attached at NW end of office and store, with small pyramid-roof pump house at the opposite end.
EXTERIOR: 2 storey; 3-window house has a central round-arched doorway with panelled door, keyed, flat-headed windows with mid C20 glazing, the upper ones in half dormers. 2 stacks with cornices to ridge and end hip. Similar rear has 2 dormers and flat-headed doorway.
Main store and office range a single storey with 4 openings each side, the SW side has 3 windows and a doorway between the end two, the NE side has 2 windows with a door between and a large central carriage entrance.
Pump house narrower, 5 storeys; 1-window elevation to E and W with 3/6-pane sashes, and a doorway from the NE side beside a small lean-to. Steep roofs with corbelled eaves.
INTERIOR: Reported to have softwood roof, the central part divided between the office and store.
HISTORY: The Marsh works were part of the Royal Gunpowder Factory which was established outside Faversham in 1786 after an explosion in the town, to remove some of the more dangerous processes. They played an important part in the improvement of British gunpowder leading up to and during the Napoleonic Wars, under William Congreve. The saltpetre refinery was built in 1789 as part of Congreve's successful drive to improve the ingredients of British powder. It was privatised after the war, and closed in the 1920s.
The offices, stores and accommodation were the final part of the refurbishment of the refinery under Government control, and formed an important part of the operation of the works. It forms part of a discrete, coherent group of late C18-early C19 industrial buildings for refining saltpetre, the best preserved of this type in the country and comparable with French and Swedish examples.
(Wayne Cocroft, Dangerous Energy. The archaeology of gunpowder and military explosives manufacture. Swindon (English Heritage), 2000, pp. 54-67)
Legacy
The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.
- Legacy System number:
- 488272
- Legacy System:
- LBS
Sources
Books and journals
Cocroft, W, Dangerous Energy The Archaeology of Gunpowder and Military Explosives Manufacture, (2000), 54-67
Legal
This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.
Map
This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale. This copy shows the entry on 28-Jun-2026 at 09:00:17.
Download a full scale map (PDF)End of official list entry
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