Low Wood gunpowder mills

Low Wood Gunpowder Works (also Lowwood) was a gunpowder mill founded in Furness, England, at the end of the 18th century. It became a significant supplier, and survived as a business until taken over by Imperial Chemical Industries around 1930. The works has been disused since 1935.

The mill was set up on an estuary site, for sea access, on the River Leven. Initially it was called Daye Barker & Co., the founding partners being Daye Barker, James King, Christopher Wilson and Joseph Fayrer. The surviving Clock Tower Works is a Grade II* Listed Building.

Gunpowder production in the area (now southern Cumbria) had begun in 1764, with a mill at Sedgwick built by John Wakefield of Kendal. An important aspect was the supply of the triangular trade, in particular of Liverpool merchants engaged in it. The Low Wood works started to operate in 1798.

The Lowwood site, near Haverthwaite, had been used earlier for a forge of the 17th century, under the alternate name Burnbarrow (closed down by 1620). In the 18th century Isaac Wilkinson set up a furnace for iron production. A pre-existing weir may have been used by the forge. Factors favouring gunpowder mill sites in what is now Cumbria included the existing charcoal industry and water power.

Daye Barker left his cotton business at nearby Backbarrow in 1798. Daye Barker & Co was issued a gunpowder licence on 2 October of that year.

The mill made black powder, mixing imported sulphur and saltpetre with charcoal, which initially was made locally. It adopted the suggestion of government adviser Richard Watson, to control the conditions under which charcoal was prepared, as charcoal cylinders, for greater reliability. The large demand created for charcoal was met from coppices on Windermere, Coniston Water and Esthwaite Water. The best woods from the point of view of powder grain size were juniper (local name "savin"), followed by alder and silver birch.

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