Building Community: Medieval Technology and American History | Photoarchives

Charlcote Furnace, Shropshire

Charlcote Furnace last produced iron in the mid-seventeenth century, and seems to have been in blast for about 4 decades (although it may have been operating much longer). Today its remains are on private land, but for more information see <article in Iron and Steel Institute Journal>.

Click on each thumbnail for more information.

Charlcote-nw	Charlcote-nw2	Charlcote-w	Charlcote-sw
These views of the furnace show what a remarkable state of preservation it is in for a nearly 400-year old furnace. It was clearly square with very near-to-perpendicular sides. It is not perfectly clear which was the blowing arch and which was the casting arch, although likely the northwest arch (leftmost picture above) was the blowing arch. No trace of the blowing equipment or even the raceway that presumably powered the waterwheel for the blowing engine is visible today. The furnace is made of laid cut sandstone with ion header bars to support the arches.
Charlcote-humanscale	Charlcote-stack	Charlcote-headers	Charlcote-headerbar
You can see the size of this substantial furnace at the left. Looking up into the stack from the casting arch (the top is covered to prevent erosion and as a safety measure) there are two header bars made of cast iron over the blowing arch, which allows the masonry to taper outward from the bottom of the furnace to the bosh (the widest part of the inside of the furnace) on one end of the main header bar over the casting arch, the cast iron has been formed into a square section, although you can see the foresight of the foundrymen that they beveled it over the rest of its length - this reduced weight and the valuable iron, and also likely saved a good number of scraped scalps over the years.
Charlcote-hand	Charlcote-handbar	Charlcote	Charlcote-slag
Fascinatingly, when you look closely at the main header bar over the casting arch, you can see that a foundryman - or foundry boy, more likely, given the size - has put their hand into the sand mold for the bar before casting, thus preserving his hand for posterity.		Today the furnace sits quietly in the middle of a horse paddock, although lightly fenced off from the horses. Trees have grown up on the slag piles that surround the entire site and slag of all sizes (like the breadbox-sized one protruding from the ground at the right).

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