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the history of Leyton and Leytonstone
from . dot to … dots – with plenty of spaces
1642 - 1688, Civil War to Glorious Revolution
Temple Mills
John Berisford was a major supplier of gunpowder to the Parliamentary side of the Civil War from Temple Mills and Sewardstone Mills, but in the early 1650s Temple Mills stopped producing gunpowder 1.
During the 1670s Temple Mills were being used to manufacture naval guns, shells and brass instruments. The Leyton parish registers make numerous references to workers at the Mills from 1677 but in 1681 the Royal Ordnance was retrieving material from Temple Mills, and the project’s patron, Charles II’s uncle Prince Rupert, died the following year. By 1687 Temple Mills were making gunpowder again, but an explosion in 1690 killed the Huguenot owner of the enterprise, Peter Paine, with his wife, his son, a parson and a maidservant who were all buried at West Ham 1.