With the launching of HMS Warrior in 1860, naval gunners faced a problem: how to pierce the iron hulls of the new warships. Developments from the small arms field helped provide a solution: percussion firing, rifled gun barrels, breech-loading and cordite. Now, massive guns with less recoil and greater accuracy became a reality.

Until the 1870's, gunpowder was virtually the only practical explosives available. More powerful substances were in existence - in 1847 Ascanio Sobrero of Italy had developed nitroglycerine, and Christian Schonbein of Switzerland had produced guncotton (nitrocellulose) - but at the time these were far too unstable to use in guns and shells. From the 1870s, guncotton, which retained its explosive capacity when wet, was used in mines and torpedoes, but it was only when cordite was introduced into naval service in 1893 that gunpowder was replaced as the main propellant.

For more than 100 years Priddy’s Hard stored and supplied gunpowder to the wooden sailing ships of the Royal Navy. The powder came from the Royal Gunpowder Manufactories at Waltham Abbey, Essex and Faversham, Kent. It was shipped from the Thames round the coast and unloaded in the Camber. Barrels of powder were taken on barrows to and from the powder magazines along the Rolling Way.