Building    From 1684 

Bagley's Foundry / The Foundery

Categories: Engineering, Religion

There was a gun-manufacturing foundry at Windmill Hill, now Tabernacle Street EC2, until an explosion on 10 May 1716. Captured French guns were being melted and the liquid metal was poured into moulds which were (unintentionally) damp. The moulds exploded, killing Mathew Bagley, the founder, and 16 others, and injuring several important visitors. 

Widely known as the King’s Founders the foundry had been the principle supplier of heavy weaponry to the military. To replace it the Royal Brass Foundry was established in Woolwich in 1717.

The ruins of Bagley's Foundry were brought back into use in 1739 when John Wesley took a lease on the building, had it repaired and, as the Foundery, it became his first London chapel and the first Methodist Book-room. He had the City Road Chapel built and moved his congregation there in 1779. The Foundery pulpit and some pews can now be seen in the City Road Wesley Chapel.

This drawing shows the building c.1830.

Londonist has a good post about this building.

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This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Bagley's Foundry / The Foundery

Commemorated ati

Royal Brass Foundry

The Royal Brass Foundry, 1717, attributed to Sir John Vanbrugh. Following an...

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The Foundery

Note: other sources seem agreed that Susannah died on the 23rd not the 30th o...

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Other Subjects

Royal Brass Foundry

Royal Brass Foundry

The Woolwich riverfront had been used as a dockyard and arms store for decades so having the foundry here made sense. It's construction was in response to a fatal explosion at Bagley's Foundry, jus...

Building, Armed Forces, Engineering

2 memorials
Robert Harrild

Robert Harrild

Printer and engineer. Born in Bermondsey, where in 1801 he set up the Bluecoat Boy Printing Office, producing books and commercial stationery. He is noted for introducing 'composition rollers' whic...

Person, Commerce, Engineering

2 memorials
Sir William Heerlein Lindley

Sir William Heerlein Lindley

Civil engineer. Born at 50 Ferdinand Strasse, Hamburg. Worked with his father William Lindley on a number of engineering projects, including the Warsaw waterworks and the sewerage system in Prague,...

Person, Engineering, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Poland

1 memorial
Lavender Pumphouse

Lavender Pumphouse

Built to control the water level in the former Surrey Docks.

Building, Engineering

1 memorial
Colonel George Thomas Landmann

Colonel George Thomas Landmann

Army officer and engineer. Born Woolwich, the son of a professor at the Royal Military Academy. He studied at the Academy, joined the Royal Engineers and served abroad constructing fortifications, ...

Person, Engineering, Spain

2 memorials