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.

Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in here to see them

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...

Read More

The Foundery

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

Read More

Other Subjects

Cuthbert Arthur Brereton

Cuthbert Arthur Brereton

Civil engineer. His many projects include: with Wolfe-Barry, the 1903 Kew Bridge, over the Thames, correctly known as King Edward VII Bridge; his involvement with the construction of the Barry and ...

Person, Engineering

1 memorial
Sir Proby Cautley

Sir Proby Cautley

Civil engineer and palaeontologist. FRS.  Born Suffolk.  Proby was his mother's maiden name.  1819 went to India as a commissioned second lieutenant.  Apart from a few years his work there was main...

Person, Engineering, History, India

1 memorial
Charles Jones

Charles Jones

Architect, engineer and surveyor. Born in Beccles, Suffolk. His works include two Ealing Town Halls: the current one and the previous one, now (2024) NatWest bank at 1a The Mall, Ealing, and severa...

Person, Architecture, Engineering

1 memorial
John Compton

John Compton

Organ builder. Born in Newton Burgoland, Leicestershire. He set up business in Nottingham and moved to London, eventually establishing a factory in North Acton. Many Compton organs were installed i...

Person, Engineering, Music / songs

1 memorial