Chart Gunpowder Mills in Faversham: History & Visiting Guide 2026

ByMagdalena Marsden

The Chart Gunpowder Mill, located in Faversham, Swale, is the oldest gunpowder mill in the world. Its gunpowder was used by Admiral Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 and the Duke of Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. The mill is an ancient monument with a small museum inside that includes a working model of the milling process and detailed personnel records of workers in the Faversham explosives industry from 1574 until 1934.

What’s Faversham famous for? Beer fans will need no reminding that it’s the home of Shepherds Neame – England’s oldest brewery which was founded in 1698. The brewery can be visited on special tours but Faversham can claim to be the site of an even older industry that can leave more than just a sore head!

But the town also has the oldest surviving gunpowder mill in the western world! Faversham Gunpowder Mills – The Chart Mills lie barely 400 metres from the edge of the centre’s medieval lanes but lay overgrown and neglected until the early 1960’s. Faversham’s long gunpowder industry finally came to an end in 1934 when production was moved to Scotland.

We recently visited the Chart Mills museum which opened originally in 2011 after a long period of restoration.

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How to find the Chart Gunpowder Mills in Faversham

It’s located in the Davington area of the town and we approached it from the Bysing Wood Road end which is just by a Pond – saved by the Borough Council from development. It’s a good place to sit down for a moment and enjoy the tranquil surroundings.

The area is full of fascinating old brick buildings which served as houses for the munitions workers or as part of the old workshops themselves. Although signposted from the city centre, there’s no direct website and it’s a little hard to find, tucked away in suburbia. The streams or creeks are as good a guide as any to follow.

Nowadays, the Faversham Gunpowder Mills is in a quiet housing estate but things would have been anything but quiet when production was in full swing. Making gunpowder was highly dangerous and 100 people lost their lives in an explosion at a nearby powder factory in 1916.

The Museum Opening Times

You can walk around and see the mills any time and day through the year. The museum itself is open from spring until late autumn at the weekends in the afternoon (Saturday + Sunday 2 – 5 pm) . The entrance is free and donations are welcome.

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The history of gunpowder making in Faversham

Faversham’s strategic location near the coast and on a navigable Creek played a crucial role in its success as a hub for explosives production. The adjacent low-lying, marshy wetlands, ideal for growing Alder and Willow, provided the essential ingredient of charcoal for gunpowder manufacturing.

The transportation of raw materials and finished products was also vital for the growth of this industry and other trades in Faversham. Key ingredients such as sulphur from Sicily and saltpetre from India were imported by ship, taking advantage of Faversham’s access to waterways. Even the small gauge canals utilized water from Faversham Creek to transport gunpowder between processes.

From around 1530, when Faversham Abbey initiated explosives production, until 1934, explosives were a major export of Faversham, with significant demand from Chatham and Sheerness Dockyards, the Woolwich Arsenal, the Tower of London, and European markets.

During the Napoleonic Wars, the gunpowder industry in Faversham reached its peak, likely supplying powder for the Battles of Trafalgar and Waterloo from Chart Mills, which was part of Home Works and one of the oldest in the area. Oare Works and Marsh Works followed, establishing Faversham as a significant center for explosives production. In 1759, the government nationalized the industry to ensure a steady supply of high-quality gunpowder.

Chart Mills, an Incorporating Mill where ingredients were mixed and chemically incorporated, played a crucial role in determining the quality, power, and consistency of burning. Safety was a major concern, leading to intentionally limited production to minimize the risk of explosions and loss of life. However, the housing area around the Mills was previously dedicated to gunpowder production.

With the commencement of high explosives production in 1847, risks increased, leading to complaints from local residents about damage to their homes. More significant explosions became inevitable, with the largest occurring in 1916, claiming over a hundred lives and resulting in a mass grave in Faversham Cemetery.

In 1934, Chart Mills closed due to the area’s vulnerability to European attacks. The factory relocated to Ardeer in Scotland, but has since closed, leading to the import of all black powder used in the UK. Chart Mills has been rescued and restored by the Faversham Historical Society.

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What you can see in the Chart Mill Museum

The Chart Mill museum site is a modest but informative building. We learnt from Richard, one of the volunteers, that Chart Mills is an incorporating mill, where the ingredients having been mixed together are then incorporated to become an explosive mixture.

This controlled the quality, power and evenness of burning so no wonder it was a lethal cocktail and more volatile than anything produced at the nearby brewery. The workers had special uniforms with the pockets sewn in to prevent matches or anything else setting off the powder with such devastating results.

The Fleur de Lis Heritage Centre, as museums are called these days, has some of the worker’s uniforms on display. It’s in the centre of Faversham and is a good stopping place to learn more about the many Gunpowder mills that used to frequent Faversham.

Concern over levels of drinking amongst the workers led to restrictions in the licensing hours which were still in force until quite recently brought in during the first world war to increase production and reduce drunkenness. Whether they had Faversham in mind, I don’t know but the horrific explosion must have played a part.

Inside the Faversham Gunpowder Mills, there are old photographs of workers at the mill as well as maps of where the mills stood and a history of the gunpowder industry in the area. The extensive restoration works is also well documented.

In it’s heyday, Chart Mills had 2 waterwheels which drove 4 mills. Today there’s a preserved iron wheel outside which helped to control the flow of water. Also, still visible is the pit of the other mill and the circular bed stones of the other 3 mills, as well as spare edge runners and other parts of the gunpowder making industry.

As an early nationalised industry, gunpowder from Chart Mills would have been used by the British army at battles such as Trafalgar and Waterloo. But it was a constant battle to ensure that the gunpowder didn’t explode in the mill. One such explosion blew off one of the twin towers of nearby Davington Church in 1781.

Bysing Wood Area Circular Walk around the Mills & Davington Church

There’s a pleasant circular walk, uphill in parts around the Bysing Wood area which takes in both the church and the gunpowder mills. The church is fascinating in its own right. It’s actually the oldest building in Faversham, having been originally part of a much larger priory founded in 1135 as a convent for nuns. Much of the buildings survived Henry VIII’s dissolvement of the monasteries in the late 1530s as the order had recently died out.

Restored in the 19th century, the nun’s quarters were converted into a private house which remains to this day. Talking of remains, we wandered around the church and cemetery and spotted the grave of a woman who lived to be 100 years old, dying in 1814.

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The legend of Davington Church and Reculver

There’s a nice legend about those twin towers of Davington Church that links the gunpowder mills with the even older Reculver Church near Herne Bay. An Abbess of Davington was shipwrecked off Reculver Roman Fort and promised to build two towers at the church if she survived the storm. The winds abated, she was saved and the church duly got two towers. That is until the gunpowder mill nearby proved even more destructive than the storm out at sea.

There’s much to see in the centre of Faversham particularly around parts of the newly renovated quay area. But it’s not all about beer and barges. So don’t forget to venture a little further out to discover more about one of the town’s oldest industries – gunpowder making – as well as its oldest building – Davington Church.

This blog post was originally published on 5 May 2017 and last updated on 16 January 2024

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