Early on the afternoon of Sunday the 2nd of April 1916, far out along
the marshes at Oare, near Faversham, a fire started in one of the
low-lying buildings of a vast gunpowder works where soldiers and
civilian workers were busy preparing munitions for Britain’s naval and
submarine fleets. The fire took hold quickly, and at about one o’clock
building no. 833 of the Explosives Loading Company exploded with the
full force of the huge quantity of TNT it contained. As the
surrounding buildings ignited, several further explosions followed. By
the time medical and firefighting services arrived from the nearest
town of Faversham, a scene of extraordinary devastation awaited them,
such as had rarely been witnessed in Britain in 1916. Over a hundred
workers were killed.
 

The story of the ‘Great Explosion’ is well known locally, less so
elsewhere in Kent and hardly at all beyond the region. I’m interested
as a writer in the story of what happened on 2 April 1916, how events
unfolded either side of the split second of catastrophe when the first
building exploded. But I’m also interested in the surviving ruins and
landscape, and the ways this story has to some extent vanished into
that landscape. I’m especially intrigued, for the purposes of this
residency, in the visual and aural aspects of the landscape, the
flatness of the area, the effect that had at the time on witnesses to
the event, and the memorial meaning today of a relatively empty but
resonant place. I will be collecting archive information on the Great
Explosion, welcoming stories or enquiries from interested visitors,
but for the most part simply looking and listening as intently as I
can. I hope the essay I produce later will do justice to the history
of the place, its present strangeness and (because ruins always point
us towards the future as well as past) its future potential.

For more on Brian Dillon’s writing go to http://briangdillon.wordpress.com/

Brian will be in resident inside the Baton collecting research on Oare Marshes.