Purfleet

My next stop was Upminster but my TomTom took me to Purfleet instead and I wasted some time looking for a building that doesn't exist (mainly because it's in Upminster not Purfleet!).

I did however see St Stephen and the last standing, originally one of five, magazines.

St Stephen was on my not interested list and is only included because of TomTom's error, also it sits on the site of Purfleet House which was probably the basis of Carfax House in Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Purfleet magazine was the main testing and storage place for all the gunpowder used by the military during late Georgian and Victorian times. Built between 1761 and 1773 they supplied gunpowder and ordnance until 1950; each magazine held 10,400 (460 tons) of gunpowder - if an explosion had occurred I'd imagine most of this part of Essex would have been destroyed. I bet the 1884 Great Earthquake had them worried.

GOVERNMENT POWDER MAGAZINE. Removed to Purfleet from Greenwich from 1760 onwards. In 1771 the ‘strongly arched’ buildings, the quay and house for the storekeeper are mentioned. The latter is a handsome yellow brick house with side pavilions. In the garden wall a clock turret. The buildings deserve further study.

Flickr.