Although there is no evidence that Guy Fawkes, (the man connected with the Gunpowder Plot) sourced the black powder from Waltham Abbey's gunpowder mill, we like to play up to the possibility to the hilt, by celebrating with a great Guy Fawkes festival and a special Gunpowder, Treason and Plot education programme for schools.
The Royal Gunpowder Mills has a long and fascinating history. It played an essential part in military history and national defense, as well as the development of civil industries such as mining and quarrying . It is a story with humble beginnings, of a family run business, which prospered and grew to become Crown property and a major local employer of workers in the Lea Valley and beyond, where people risked their lives to earn a crust. It became an ever expanding factory, constantly adapting to new technology, pulling in more and more workers to meet the demands of warfare across the empire, so growing and altering the shape of Waltham Abbey. Discover how the factory rose to the enormous challenges of WW1, with the sudden arrival of women to work at the factory, all unskilled and reaching at least 3,000 by the end of the war, and why a one-legged stool was a crucial health and safety implement. Explore its final phase from WW2 as a top-secret research centre for Cold War inventions and rocketry.
On an Open Day you can enjoy an introductory film, exhibtions, an armoury, explore listed buildings and take a guided land train tour around the 170 acres of historic buildings and woodland. We are family-friendly and have fun stuff for kids. What's On has details of special tours for an in-depth experience of history. Groups of 20 people or more can discuss a day to visit or take a tour at any time of year.
For more information on our next open day or when you can visit click here
A timeline of gunpowder development and related activities at the Waltham Abbey Royal Gunpowder Mills Read more
The Royal Gunpowder Mills site is an important industrial monument containing one of the most extensive ranges of industrial archaeology in the country. Read more
The Gunpowder and Explosives History Group was set up in October 2000. We had first met in 1985, drawn together by Alan Crocker, Glenys Crocker, and Phil Philo, and had decided to call ourselves the Gunpowder Mills Study Group. Read more
Discover the science and history surrounding the manufacture of gunpowder and other explosives by taking our 23 point Online Audio Tour which can be listened to by clicking the speaker icons below. When you visit our site in person, you may also take our Self Guided Audio Tour by scanning the QR Codes on each Information Panel with your Mobile phone. Read more
After the closure of ERDE, the archive material inherited passed through a number of hands and storage locations, particularly in the latter period before opening to the public, when outside staff from the firm designing the exhibition had to have free access. Consequently by 2004 the Archive had become rather disorganised. Read more
Internationally, the Royal Gunpowder Mills is amongst a handful of places associated with the manufacture of explosives dating back many centuries which have subsequently been preserved and opened to the public. Read more
Gunpowder is a mixture of the natural products saltpetre, sulphur and charcoal. Its beginnings are obscure... Read more
Two shots a minute from a musket three hundred years ago, to over fifteen hundred from a WW2 machine gun, the history of firearms is a story of amazing technical development and inventiveness. Read more
Up until January 1917 all rolling stock was moved by manual labour, but with the demands of the First World War, locomotives were introduced to move explosives and propellants around the site, plus bring in raw materials from the standard gauge railway at the Royal Small Arms Factory which lay to the south of the Royal Gunpowder Mills. Read more