Chilworth Gunpowder Mills, Surrey - March 2017
I’ve walked around here many times before. Great place to walk the dog, and it is nice to see the surroundings change with the seasons. I had a spur of the moment idea to stop here with the camera in March before I headed up to Tyting Farm, and went back a few weeks later with H and one of our friends, hence the sunny shots and the more gloomy weather ones.
Some history shamelessly copied and pasted:
“The fast flowing Tillingbourne river attracted industry to Chilworth, as the river could be utilised to power water mills. The Domesday Book of 1086 recorded a mill in the area, and in later centuries paper and corn mills were established. In the 16th Century, the Evelyn family set up a gunpowder works in the area after being awarded the royal monopoly on gunpowder manufacture. In 1626, the East India Company also established a gunpowder mill on the banks of the Tillingbourne.
The East India Company was a privately owned enterprise that was set up to conduct trade with the East Indies (south and east Asia) and was awarded a Royal Charter by Elizabeth I in 1600. It was regularly in conflict with the Dutch and Portuguese East India Companies which were also vying for footholds on the Indian Subcontinent. This conflict led the East India Company to raise its own armies in order to protect its trading and territorial interests, so the gunpowder works it opened at Chilworth in 1626 was used to supply its forces abroad.
The manufacture of gunpowder also involved commodities that the East India Company was importing to the British Isles. Saltpetre, a nitrate used as the oxidising component in gunpowder, was imported in huge quantities from India – during the reign of King Charles II (1660-1685), it is thought that as much as 1,000 tonnes of saltpetre was shipped to England each year, and this quantity only increased as bloody wars on the European continent demanded more and more gunpowder.
By the middle of the 17th Century, the gunpowder works at Chilworth were no longer run by the East India Company, but by other private enterprises. Their main customer was the English government, and during the English Civil War the mills at Chilworth helped to supply the Parliamentarian forces with gunpowder. However, governments were not always good at paying the powder manufacturers on time, and the number of powder mills at Chilworth fluctuated over time, as some enterprises failed when their owners experienced financial problems. In 1704, only one of the three gunpowder mills at Chilworth was still manufacturing gunpowder (one of the other mills was converted into a paper mill). However, business picked up again in the 19th Century and the gunpowder works expanded in this period.
But why was Chilworth chosen as the site for the gunpowder works? Apart from the favourable location by the Tillingbourne for operating water mills, the valley was full of alder trees which were ideal for making charcoal, another of the materials required to manufacture gunpowder.
The demand for explosives during the First World War meant that after hostilities had ceased in November 1918, there was a massive oversupply of factories manufacturing cordite and other explosives. Many of these places found themselves surplus to peacetime requirements, and Chilworth was one of these. The Chilworth Gunpowder Company closed in 1920, bringing to an end almost three hundred years of explosive manufacturing on the banks of the Tillingbourne. Some of the buildings on the site were demolished, and others fell slowly into ruin.”
I highly recommend the walk round here if you are ever in the area. You would never know there was so much history scattered throughout these woods when you drive past.
Incorporating Mill:
The Chilworth Mounds. It was discovered that filling large tubes of corrugated tin or iron with earth and banking them up around the different sections containing or producing active explosives helped shield other buildings from explosions, or at least lessen the impact and help reduce the spread of fire. There were a few that happened here! In August 1867 two men were killed, another more serious one in 1901 “a spark from a hob-nailed boot worn by one of the men outside the building” resulted in six men being killed. As a result the company provided special footwear to employees to reduce this happening again. The Chilworth site was very forward thinking in the approach to safety, and many ideas were adopted by other gunpowder mills, the Chilworth Mound became a standard for explosive manufacturing.
With the addition of steam power in the 1860's, the mill was able to expand further and produce a range of products for military, industrial and sporting use. The remains of this boiler house can still be seen.
Dotted around the site there are a few other interesting bits:
Dragons tooth:
Loading/unloading platform:
Old swing bridge leading to the tramway, I assume this went to the railway nearby:
Powder magazine:
And finally, lots of the iconic mill stones:
Thanks for looking!
I’ve walked around here many times before. Great place to walk the dog, and it is nice to see the surroundings change with the seasons. I had a spur of the moment idea to stop here with the camera in March before I headed up to Tyting Farm, and went back a few weeks later with H and one of our friends, hence the sunny shots and the more gloomy weather ones.
Some history shamelessly copied and pasted:
“The fast flowing Tillingbourne river attracted industry to Chilworth, as the river could be utilised to power water mills. The Domesday Book of 1086 recorded a mill in the area, and in later centuries paper and corn mills were established. In the 16th Century, the Evelyn family set up a gunpowder works in the area after being awarded the royal monopoly on gunpowder manufacture. In 1626, the East India Company also established a gunpowder mill on the banks of the Tillingbourne.
The East India Company was a privately owned enterprise that was set up to conduct trade with the East Indies (south and east Asia) and was awarded a Royal Charter by Elizabeth I in 1600. It was regularly in conflict with the Dutch and Portuguese East India Companies which were also vying for footholds on the Indian Subcontinent. This conflict led the East India Company to raise its own armies in order to protect its trading and territorial interests, so the gunpowder works it opened at Chilworth in 1626 was used to supply its forces abroad.
The manufacture of gunpowder also involved commodities that the East India Company was importing to the British Isles. Saltpetre, a nitrate used as the oxidising component in gunpowder, was imported in huge quantities from India – during the reign of King Charles II (1660-1685), it is thought that as much as 1,000 tonnes of saltpetre was shipped to England each year, and this quantity only increased as bloody wars on the European continent demanded more and more gunpowder.
By the middle of the 17th Century, the gunpowder works at Chilworth were no longer run by the East India Company, but by other private enterprises. Their main customer was the English government, and during the English Civil War the mills at Chilworth helped to supply the Parliamentarian forces with gunpowder. However, governments were not always good at paying the powder manufacturers on time, and the number of powder mills at Chilworth fluctuated over time, as some enterprises failed when their owners experienced financial problems. In 1704, only one of the three gunpowder mills at Chilworth was still manufacturing gunpowder (one of the other mills was converted into a paper mill). However, business picked up again in the 19th Century and the gunpowder works expanded in this period.
But why was Chilworth chosen as the site for the gunpowder works? Apart from the favourable location by the Tillingbourne for operating water mills, the valley was full of alder trees which were ideal for making charcoal, another of the materials required to manufacture gunpowder.
The demand for explosives during the First World War meant that after hostilities had ceased in November 1918, there was a massive oversupply of factories manufacturing cordite and other explosives. Many of these places found themselves surplus to peacetime requirements, and Chilworth was one of these. The Chilworth Gunpowder Company closed in 1920, bringing to an end almost three hundred years of explosive manufacturing on the banks of the Tillingbourne. Some of the buildings on the site were demolished, and others fell slowly into ruin.”
I highly recommend the walk round here if you are ever in the area. You would never know there was so much history scattered throughout these woods when you drive past.
Incorporating Mill:
The Chilworth Mounds. It was discovered that filling large tubes of corrugated tin or iron with earth and banking them up around the different sections containing or producing active explosives helped shield other buildings from explosions, or at least lessen the impact and help reduce the spread of fire. There were a few that happened here! In August 1867 two men were killed, another more serious one in 1901 “a spark from a hob-nailed boot worn by one of the men outside the building” resulted in six men being killed. As a result the company provided special footwear to employees to reduce this happening again. The Chilworth site was very forward thinking in the approach to safety, and many ideas were adopted by other gunpowder mills, the Chilworth Mound became a standard for explosive manufacturing.
With the addition of steam power in the 1860's, the mill was able to expand further and produce a range of products for military, industrial and sporting use. The remains of this boiler house can still be seen.
Dotted around the site there are a few other interesting bits:
Dragons tooth:
Loading/unloading platform:
Old swing bridge leading to the tramway, I assume this went to the railway nearby:
Powder magazine:
And finally, lots of the iconic mill stones:
Thanks for looking!
