In a wooded valley on the outskirts of Gateshead sits an
unassuming building. But this building had a remarkable
impact on England's industrial history.
Originally built in the 1720s, Derwentcote Steel Furnace
played an important role in the creation of steel
allowing for a huge step forwards in engineering and production.
I'm Rob Bell, engineer and adventurer
and I'm travelling around England, seeking out some of the key sites in
this country's shift towards a more modern way of manufacturing and living
This steel furnace employed an
early method of turning wrought iron into steel
and was active for over a hundred years up until the late 1800s.
To find out more about the part Derwentcote played
I'm meeting Mark Douglas, Senior Properties Curator
from English Heritage
- Mark, nice to meet you - You too
There's so much more to this building once you step inside
- Yeah, it's good isn't it - It's fantastic
So, tell me when was this steel furnace operational? When was it active?
It was active from the early part of the 18th century
We know probably from around about 1720.
This is the earliest surviving example of a cementation furnace in the country.
That's what makes it incredibly important
Can you tell me a bit about the process
of what went on in the furnace here - how you turn iron into steel?
The main principle is you must not let air get to the iron because it oxidizes it
So inside this massive masonry that you can see in front of you here, there's two chests
In those two chests they would pack bars of iron between layers of charcoal
and then top the whole thing off with sand to make it airtight
and light a fire. There's flumes going around the outside
up to a dome ceiling and flumes going underneath these two stone chests
And basically heat them up to about 1100 degrees
and keep it at that temperature for between seven and ten days
Then allow the whole thing to slowly cool down, probably another two weeks
During that process the iron inside there
will absorb the carbon out of the surrounding charcoal and that would then
create what we call blister steel. The whole surface would look like a
pancake or blistered up like a pancake when it came out of these furnaces
and that would be then used to forge
sheer steel and used to make the tools down in the forge
What kinds of tools, what kind of implements
might have been manufactured from the steel from this furnace?
Anything with edges. Anything with cutting edges
because it would hold an edge and it could be made a lot thinner
Scythes, shears and also swords
And was this part of England then intrinsically linked to steel production
and if so why was that?
Steel production in itself isn't really intrinsically linked to any particular place
It can be done anywhere, all you need is raw materials
What made this place important is geology and geography
Geology in the sense that we have access to raw materials such as iron
But the main thing that made this
different was the route between here and the continent
Between here and Sweden - the access to Swedish bar iron which is
an incredibly pure form of iron
So it was Swedish iron that was used
and turned into steel here, not English iron?
No, the British iron from around here was high in phosphorus
Swedish iron was incredibly pure
How important was Derwentcote then within the steel production of the
greater area of the North East?
Derwentcote was one of many many manufacturers around here
but it was the development of this
sort of process that lasted a long time at Derwentcote
But the valley itself, the Derwent valley, at one point was the biggest iron works in Europe
Over 50 percent of all the iron produced in the country in the 18th century
was produced in this valley. It was just a hotbed of furnaces
and steam and iron and smoke
It would have been an incredible place to be
Absolutely yeah it's very hard to
imagine that when you're walking around here now
Were there other furnaces similar to this in other parts of the country?
Sheffield is the main protagonist but somebody - probably a disgruntled employee
snuck off down to Sheffield and took the ideas
It wasn't the process itself, it was the technical bits in between that made the difference
The people move to where the opportunities lay.
It's an evolutionary process in a way
The process of producing steel by this method
had been practiced for hundreds of years, but not on this scale.
How big an employer was this steel furnace? Who was working here?
To run this, it would take you and that'll be it.
So it's a one-man job or possibly a two man job
And that was it then?
The whole process from start to finish would be a vast employer
Making chains, making anchors - here they were making billets of steel
They're not taking this and finishing stuff off.
They're producing a product, then giving to somebody else.
It was the bigger plants where they're doing everything
They took it from raw materials to finished product and it was this hive of activity
But of course unfortunately by 1890 this place has gone, finished.
The furnace had gone out, quite literally
The next evolution of the whole place was a road was driven through the forge
to furnish a drift mine, a coal mine
That's all gone. Now we've got a valley
When did English Heritage take guardianship of the Derwentcote Steel Furnace?
And what condition was it in at the time?
It was taken into guardianship in 1985
and it was in pretty poor condition. But it was also the rest of the
landscape that's also a scheduled monument
It's been afforded a level of protection by the state as well
And so what about the work that's required here at Derwentcote in order to
preserve this for future generations to come and enjoy and to learn about our industrial past?
It's not a sort of building that's going to fade away quite quickly.
It's a huge substantial piece of masonry
The main thing you've got to do with this place is keep the water out
Keep it dry and it'll last forever.
Well I hope so because it's a really exciting part of our history and it's great to come
and learn more about it from you today, Mark.
- Thank you so much - My pleasure
From a distance this site may seem barely worthy of note
But as we've learned today, it's a hidden gem
in the local, the national and the international story of steel production
It's also early proof that the north of England would play a
key role in the Industrial Revolution and that England
as a whole would be swept up in a pioneering period of manufacturing and industrialisation
The area around Derwentcote Steel Furnace
is open all year round and the furnace itself is open on special days
To find out more, check the English Heritage website