The industrial revolution really started in the Iron Bridge gorge in Shropshire. Abraham Darby successfully smelted iron ore with coke made from coal from nearby Coalbrookedale in 1709. In 1781, the very first Iron Bridge was completed, designed by Thomas Pritchard, a local architect, the first large scale use of cast iron.
From there, Shropshire became the industrial centre, and many see the Iron Bridge as a symbol of the Industrial Revolution, made from the material that spurred on that same significant period of time.
A few miles away from Ironbridge is the Blists Hill Victorian Town, part of the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust, its self built on a former site of brick and tile works, coal mines, iron ore mines and blast furnaces. The town depicts a typical industrial town in the Victorian age, and this post is all about this amazing museum.
Where it all started – the world’s first iron bridge in…Ironbridge, and still standing to this day. It is reckoned that to be able to cast such a large structure back then that the furnace would have been tapped straight into large moulds on to the foundry floor. As you walk into the village, the imposing structure of the Blists Hill Goods Shed stands before you. Although there was never a railway here, the LNWR and GWR had lines nearby on opposite sides of the river Severn, serving the nearby Ironbridge and Coalport.The town was never here before the museum opened – it was built around the former iron works, coal mine and brick works. But what it shows is how a typical Victorian town would look.
This is inside the grocers shop. So many old artefacts, such as the old scales, the old till, and the shelves behind the counter – all from a period long before self service shops where even known.
All aspects of Victorian life are portrait, including the fact that horses were still common place in everyday life.The attention to detail is amazing, right down to the working gas lamps. But there is also a reminder that in many towns, all sorts of small scale engineers set up business to undertake work for the town; here we see the carpenters and saw mill.Small scale heavy engineers also set up shop, able to work with metal for a whole variety of applications, and all belt driven from line shafts driven by steam. Blacksmiths were a feature of many towns in the Victorian times, and here is one of the resident blacksmiths at work making large nails. I love watching people like this at work, preserving skills from the past.As steam was an important part of the Industrial Revolution, steam features at Blists Hill. In 1989, a group of engineers built a replica of an engine that was never completed by Richard Trevithick, the famous Cornish engineer who patented ‘high pressure’ or ‘strong’ steam in 1802. He never finished this 3 foot gauge engine, known as the ‘Coalbrookdale Engine’, most of the work undertaken in nearby Coalbrookdale. Stationary steam engines also feature, and this one is being used to power a stone crushing machine. Other stationary engines powered the engineering works, the winding engine for the coal mine, and the iron works. One of the fascinating attractions is the iron foundry. The foundry has blast furnace attached, which, until recently, was fully functioning, but currently requires major attention to be able to be used again. Inside the iron foundry reminds us what these places were like in the Victorian times – the pattern moulds, the air drying sand used to make the moulds for casting, and the ‘ladles’ for carrying molten iron to the moulds.Another of the fascinating parts is the iron works, which contains the rolling mill from an old iron works in Bolton, known to the late great Fred Dibnah. Whereas the iron foundry was concerned with cast iron, the ironworks produced wrought iron, which was tougher material. The drop forge and rolling mill are in the background. A better shot of the rolling mill. Hot iron would be taken taken from the blast furnace, and passed through the rolling mill to shape it. Quite often, there would be easy chairs in these places for the men to ‘flop’ in to after undertaking a few passes through the rolling mill, due to the intense nature of this work. This is the old drop forge, where a large steam operated hammer would bash and mould hot iron blocks into different shapes, under the skilful operation of a team of men.Blists Hill also has an old coal mine complete with shaft, pit head gear and working winding engine. In the background is the old brick works, that was originally on the site.
So, this has been a long time coming, a very long time coming, but I finally got my act together and have done another blog post!
One of my all time favourite museums is the National Slate Museum in Llanberis. The museum has been built in the old quarry workshops of the Dinorwic Quarry, once one of the largest slate quarries in the world, where all manner of parts and equipment for use in the quarry could be made, engines were serviced, and the men would gather for meal breaks.
Each slate quarry in North Wales was an independent concern, and therefore required to be able to make or repair any of the machinery used in the quarry, from the engines working the levels in the quarry, to the tools used for the quarrying. Everything could be made or repaired in the workshops, and this required all sorts of machining machines, a foundry and a smithy. In many ways it had too – not only were they independent, but remote from so much else in Wales.
A good chunk of the museum is taken up by the old machinery of the workshop, the foundry, and the smithy, and over many visits over may years, this is my collection of pictures.
The entrance to the museum and the workshops, therefore, is through an impressive arched gateway. Ahead is the main courtyard of the workshops.View from the other side of the court yard, looking out of the sawing shed. The entrance archway was underneath the offices.Inside the saw shed, there is a belt driven set of saws that can saw a tree trunk into to planks of wood, which could be used for all sorts from sleepers for the various railway lines to decking for the inclined plains.The various machines in the workshop were driven by water wheel, which then powered a line shaft throughout the workshops. Drive was transferred from water and then to the line shaft through right angled bevel gears.The line shaft would continue pulley wheels to allow belts to be put on to drive the machinery in the various parts of the workshop. Skilled men could put a belt on with the line shaft moving, although this was frowned upon…This part of the workshop contained the large cutting benches, and like all the other machinery in the workshop, it was all belt driven. Note that to reverse the direction of the cutting saws, the belts were put on in a figure of 8.A cathedral like room contained the foundry. Patterns would be made in wood that are slightly larger than the item being made, the amount depended on the metal being cast. These would then be filled with air drying sand, and the molten metal then poured into the mould created through holes (if it is a closed casting) or into the top (if it is an open casting). There are still place in the UK that still do foundry work in this way.Many of the patterns created in the pattern shop were reused, eg, like here the gears and wheels, which were made and remade on a regular basisIt was not only large items that could be cast; intricate items like the plague shown could also be cast, showcasing the skills of the foundry men and pattern makersJust another picture of the foundry – included this because I liked the light in it.Compared to the foundry, the smithy is in a much smaller, darker space. There was space for up 4 blacksmiths to be working at once.The smithy is a fully functional smithy, but on the many visits to the welsh slate museum, I’ve never seen it working until October 2020, when one of the blacksmiths was making articles to sell in the shop. It’s skills like those off a blacksmith I admire; the ability to mould and shape metal into different objects by heating the metal and making it pliable is amazing.The workshop also contained machines for working on the various locomotives for the 2’ gauge (actually 1’ 11 3/4” gauge but referred to as 2’ gauge) system, but also the 4’ gauge Padarn railway to Port Dinorwic, where much of the slate was exported.The final part of the workshop is where the large lathes are kept. These lathes could turn anything up to the size of a locomotive wheel.
That’s all folks for this post. Don’t forget to like, subscribe and share!!
All I can say is that it’s been a while since I last posted…so here we go with a promise to post more frequently
Cromford Mills, near Cromford in Derbyshire, is the site of Sir Richard Arkwright’s first successful water powered cotton spinning mill in 1771. Further developments were made to the site until 1790 when the buildings were seen here were all built.
This is what the industrial revolution was about – mechanising tasks to increase production, replacing the smaller, less efficient methods; and before the use of steam, Sir Richard Arkwright made use of water to drive his contribution to the industrial revolution.
The site is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and today contains various shops and cafes, but the old machinery for the driving of the mills is all preserved. These pictures are from a visit at the end of August 2020.
The entrance to the Comford Mills shows the buildings dating from the 18th CentruryAnother view of the various buildings on the site, that once contained spinning machines, clattering with may decibels, driving the early industrial revolution A few years before the discovery of steam power, water power was the only form of propulsion available for the spinning machinery.Water power was harnessed by the use of sluice gates to control the flow of the water. Water was a powerful driver and was used in the manufacture of all sorts from cotton to flour. We know the damage water can do with such power, and this power was harnessed to drive machinery. The ‘controlled’ water would then drive water wheels connected to the machinery The buildings now house various shops and cafes. What is nice is to see references to the past in some fo these shopsThere is also a museum that talks about this history of Cromford Mills, with exhibits like this……and this. Harking back to a time before large machines that replaced these methods of making cotton
That’s all folks this time – don’t forget to like, comment and share
One of the industries that doesn’t seem to get much attention is Cornwall’s China Clay industry, an industry that has put bread on the table of many families in central Cornwall for many years, either directly through the workers in the quarries, or for those railwaymen who have worked to transport the clay.
My interest in the China Clay came from many Easter holidays to west Cornwall, but spending time watching Class 37 diesels hauling long rakes of CDA hopper wagons around the county. So much so, that my N gauge model railway features a china clay works.
Anyway, the Wheal Martyn China Clay museum near St Austell, is the only museum in Cornwall showing the workings of China Clay, and is based in the old Wheal Martyn China Clay works. Here are some pictures from my last visit in October 2019.
Why would a museum have a random locomotive nameplate on its wall? Well, William Cookworthy, a Pharmacist from Plymouth, was the man who discovered Kaolin (China Clay) in Cornwall in 1746, on Tregonning Hill, near Germoe in West Cornwall (between Helston and Penzance). Later he found richer deposits near St Austell, and patented the processing of Kaolin into Porcelain. The nameplate adorned two class 37 diesels; 37207 from 1980 to 1987, and 37675 from 1987 to c1994, both based at St Blazey Depot, the hub of rail operations for China Clay in Cornwall at different times.Although not at the museum, this is Tregonning Hill taken from the back of the Holiday Cottages that for the first 21 years of my life we spent every Easter, and at other times since (Many happy memories). This is the south side of the hill, and on the north side, you can see where William Cookworthy made some excavations to find the first Kaolin in Cornwall. Kaolin is decomposed granite, and is a soft white powered material. It was first found in China (hence the nickname China Clay), and used to make very fine porcelain. The discovery of the deposits in Cornwall would plug a gap in the market for those who wanted fine porcelain in the UK, who, up this point, largely had to make do with earthenware.ECC International is name, for me anyway, that is synonymous with China Clay in Cornwall. For many years, EEC, or English China Clays, ran the majority of China Clay operation in Cornwall from 1919, with the amalgamation of several of the biggest clay producers in Cornwall, until 1999, when the company was brought out by the French mining giant Imetal, and the name changed to Imerys Minerals. Goonvean Ltd was the only other producer fo clay in the County, and was too purchased by Imerys Minerals in 2013.At the museum, there are a couple of railway wagons, which people may just think, ‘well what are they there for?’ But these wagons are also synonymous with China Clay workings by rail; the vans took bagged clay from various locations, and the other wagon is a ‘Clay Hood’, or UCV wagon (UCV is the BR code for these wagons; ‘U’ stands for uncovered bulk wagon, ‘C’ is the type and ‘V’ stands for vacuum braked, and post 1983 classified as OOV wagons, Open, Type O, Vacuum braked wagons). Until 1988, Clay Hoods Would been seen in Cornwall and Devon transporting the clay from clay works to the ports of Fowey and Par, and in earlier days, on long distance workings to places such as my hometown of Stoke-on-Trent. The bar across the top would hold the hood above the clay, and were added in the late 1970s. These wagons were the last open bodied, wooden wagons to be used in large quantities by British RailOne of the interesting features of the museum, other than the old 1954 built ERF lorry in the foreground, is the working water wheel. Kaolin is extracted by a mixture of blasting (to loosen the rock) and water blasting to separate the Kaolin from the remaining granite, the slurry is then pumped into the settling tanks (see below). The water wheel was used to pump the very wet clay slurry from the pit down to the dries.I’ve said already that the museum at Wheal Martyn is built around the old Wheal Martyn clay works. To the right of the visitor centre, you can see the remains of one of the old pan kilns. Until 1948, this was the only way of drying the clay slurry to get the Kaolin ready for transport. A pan kiln literally just heats the clay slurry, evaporating the water, and leaving the Kaolin behind. The method was very labour intensive and not the most efficient. However, pan kilns survived until the early 2000s, the most notable being Wenford Dries in North Cornwall near Bodmin. In 1948 the new Buell driers started to be constructed, where the clay is ‘mechanically’ dried, the development having been started in the 1930s.The rear of the pan kiln had the settling tanks, where the slurry was pumped and most of the water drained off before the wet clay was shovelled into the pan kiln itself. Behind is another sight synonymous with mid-Cornwall: conical waste tips, which are formed mainly of quartz, one of the by-products of extracting Kaolin. The tips were white when they were first formed, and were nicknamed the Cornish Alps.A better view of a settling tank. Wagons would be used to get the wet clay into the Pan Kiln for drying.Inside the Pan Kiln, the wet clay would be dried out with the heat from coal fires lit in the boiler house. At the time of photographing, the Pan Kiln and the Linhay below at Wheal Martyn were under restoration. Once the clay had dried out, it would be shovelled down to the Linhay to be loaded on to trains or carts / road vehicles; in the case of Wheal Martyn, the clay would be transported originally by horse and cart to the docks at nearby Charlestown.Like so many similar industries, many tools, fastenings and similar objects had to be made on site, and like so many similar industries, many China Clay works would have originally had a black smithy on site. Here is the one recreated as Wheal Martyn.Behind the museum grounds, and up a not too steep path, China Clay is still worked in the pit behind. A number of times a week, this viewing point has to be closed off while they quarry blasts new sections into the rock to allow access to the Kaolin. Although not dried at the Wheal Martyn woks, the clay slurry from here is dried at other nearby clay works in more modern Buell driers.
Flat Cap and Camera 