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Summary

Description

Dated 1878. Rare example of 5-bay, rectangular-plan, piend-roofed former city gunpowder magazine and high boundary wall sited on ground falling steeply to E, at W outskirts of Perth. Dressed and squared, pink and grey rubble with deep eaves course, slated roof and ironwork final.

FURTHER DESCRIPTION: side elevations to N and S each with 5 small vertical window openings over 5 horizontally-aligned openings providing indirect ventilation below floor level in raised basement. W elevation with 2 under floor air vents flanking steps leading to centre timber door below small window opening.

Statement of Special Interest

The gunpowder magazine at St Magdalene's Hill is one of very few surviving powder stores. It is thought to survive in its original condition. James VI had instructed all Royal burghs to provide powder magazines, and some early military examples have been retained, including the engine and gunpowder house at Fort Augustus, but remarkably few standing domestic/municipal magazines remain.

Original drawings for the magazine show the complex interior design required for the safe storage of volatile black gunpowder. Each side of the building is divided into 6 cells with ventilation shafts dog-legging out to 5 openings below a raised floor and coombed ceiling with full-height cell divisions. Anyone entering the building was required to wear wood or brass clogs to remove the risk of sparking.

Perth's first city gunpowder store was built in 1838. It provided safe gunpowder storage for use by city merchants and traders, and quarrymasters. As Perth expanded westwards it became evident that the Tullylumb store was too close to habitation, and a new site was found between St Magdalene's Hill and Friarton Hill, near to the site of Friarton Quarry. New regulations for storing mixed explosives were issued in 1875 (Order No 5), and a licensing notice for the "Gunpowder Magazine at St Magdalene's Hill, Perth", dated July 1878 (in the office of the current quarry on the site, 2007) states that "The quantity of Explosive in this Magazine shall not at any one time exceed Twenty Thousand (20,000) pounds". With the invention of nitrogen based explosives in the later 19th century, the use of gunpowder was gradually superseded. By the mid 20th century gunpowder production in the United Kingdom was being phased out, and during the 1960s Perth town council sold the store to the Perth Quarry Company.

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