Rockley Blast Furnace is an important piece of industrial archaeology!
The Rockley blast furnace stands in the woods near Rockley Abbey Farm and was built between 1698 and 1704 to smelt the local iron ore. It was worked until the 1740s by the Spencer syndicate of ironmasters of Cannon Hall, Cawthorne.
The blast furnace was introduced to this country from the continent in 1496 and used the strong draught produced by a long chimney to achieve a high temperature. It was therefore possible to actually melt the iron and run it off at the bottom into sand beds to make ‘pigs’ of cast iron.
The furnace used charcoal from the local woods as fuel. In 1709 Abraham Derby III developed the method of smelting iron with coke at Coalbrookdale, but this method was only slowly adopted in this area and it was not until about 1770 that coke was first used in South Yorkshire.
The Rockley furnace may well have been brought into use again in about 1790, fuelled by coke, to produce gun castings.
What survives is the stack with an inner lining of heat resistant sandstone blocks and the hearth itself. Most of the dressed stone outer facings have gone. To the south side is the charging ramp, which was linked to the furnace by a bridge. There is also an engine house nearby, which housed a Newcomen beam engine and a mineral tramway to a canal! – all thoroughly researched by the fabulous South Yorkshire Industrial History Society!
There were smithies and a medieval bloomery (where water power was used to power the blowers and hammers), but these got buried beneath the M1. Local iron was heated by charcoal hammer the iron into a ‘bloom’ of wrought iron.
The furnace and engine house are both scheduled ancient monuments and the site is nestled in woodland just off Rockley Lane, close to Birdwell (South Yorkshire).
The site is owned by the South Yorkshire Industrial History Society and the project was carried out in collaboration with volunteers from the society and other local interest groups.
Walk or cycle in this area to see both the furnace and the engine house. There is a parking area at the side of the lane and a marked footpath past the engine house and on to the furnace.
Rockley Blast Furnace is an important piece of industrial archaeology!
The Rockley blast furnace stands in the woods near Rockley Abbey Farm and was built between 1698 and 1704 to smelt the local iron ore. It was worked until the 1740s by the Spencer syndicate of ironmasters of Cannon Hall, Cawthorne.
The blast furnace was introduced to this country from the continent in 1496 and used the strong draught produced by a long chimney to achieve a high temperature. It was therefore possible to actually melt the iron and run it off at the bottom into sand beds to make ‘pigs’ of cast iron.
The furnace used charcoal from the local woods as fuel. In 1709 Abraham Derby III developed the method of smelting iron with coke at Coalbrookdale, but this method was only slowly adopted in this area and it was not until about 1770 that coke was first used in South Yorkshire.
The Rockley furnace may well have been brought into use again in about 1790, fuelled by coke, to produce gun castings.
What survives is the stack with an inner lining of heat resistant sandstone blocks and the hearth itself. Most of the dressed stone outer facings have gone. To the south side is the charging ramp, which was linked to the furnace by a bridge. There is also an engine house nearby, which housed a Newcomen beam engine and a mineral tramway to a canal! – all thoroughly researched by the fabulous South Yorkshire Industrial History Society!
There were smithies and a medieval bloomery (where water power was used to power the blowers and hammers), but these got buried beneath the M1. Local iron was heated by charcoal hammer the iron into a ‘bloom’ of wrought iron.
The furnace and engine house are both scheduled ancient monuments and the site is nestled in woodland just off Rockley Lane, close to Birdwell (South Yorkshire).
The site is owned by the South Yorkshire Industrial History Society and the project was carried out in collaboration with volunteers from the society and other local interest groups.
Walk or cycle in this area to see both the furnace and the engine house. There is a parking area at the side of the lane and a marked footpath past the engine house and on to the furnace.
