Beacon Wood Country Park
Description
Beacon Wood Country Park is in Bean near Gravesend, in Kent, England. A former industrial claypit then re-claimed as woodland park.HistoryThe park has had a mixed history. For over 400 years, it was a rounded hill and ancient woodland. The trees have been used to supply timber for various uses. Including building, fencing and within ship construction. Especially the oak trees.A beacon was placed on top of the rounded hill (approx 300 feet high) during Elizabethan times. It was one of the chain of beacons lit to warn of the approach of the Spanish Armada (circa 1580). Later, some of the ancient woods were cleared and orchards were planted in the 19th century.In 1885, John J. Allchin leased a section of the site, for the yearly rent of £4-10 shillings to the E.C.Powder Company Limited, who began manufacturing smokeless gunpowder.In 1900, some 27 small, predominantly Kent-based, cement manufacturers and their subsidiaries merged to form the Associated Portland Cement Manufacturers (1900) Ltd., or APCM for short, but also known locally as "The Combine". In 1928 the famous Blue Circle brand name was introduced.In the 1930s Beacon Wood was taken over for its Clay Reserves, by APCM Ltd. From 1935 to 1964, four million tonnes of clay were excavated, mixed to a slurry and pumped along a 3 km pipeline, from the Bean Clay Pit, to Johnsons Cement Works (between Greenhithe and Stone). The clay was mixed with crushed chalk and burnt in kilns to produce cement. Although clay extraction ceased in 1964, the land remained in APCM ownership, without public access.
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