INDUSTRIAL ARCHAEOLOGY

NEWSTHE BULLETIN OF THE ASSOCIATION FOR INDUSTRIAL ARCHAEOLOGY FREE TO MEMBERS OF AIA

Romania � Asbestos � Woodberry Wetlands � Prehistoric SaltCornwall to Mexico � Restoration Projects � Speaking up for IA

178AUTUMN

2016

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INDUSTRIALARCHAEOLOGY

NEWS 178Autumn 2016

Honorary PresidentProf Marilyn Palmer63 Sycamore Drive, Groby, Leicester LE6 0EWChairmanKeith Falconer32 Fromefield, Frome, Somerset BA11 2HEVice-ChairmanDr Michael NevellSecretaryDavid de HaanAIA Liaison Office, Ironbridge Gorge Museum,Coalbrookdale, Telford TF8 7DXTreasurerJohn JonesHines Farm, Earl Stonham, Suffolk IP14 5HQIA Review EditorsDr Mike Nevell and Dr Ian WestIA News EditorChris BarneyThe Barn, Back Lane, Birdingbury CV23 8ENAffiliated Societies OfficerLynne WalkerConference SecretaryJohn McGuinness29 Altwood Road, Maidenhead SL6 4PBEndangered Sites OfficerAmber PatrickFlat 2, 14 Lypiatt Terrace, Cheltenham GL50 2SXLibrarian and ArchivistJohn PowellIronbridge Gorge Museum, Coalbrookdale, Telford TF8 7DXPublicity OfficerRoy Murphy3 Wellington Road, Ombersley, Worcestershire WR9 0DZRecording Awards OfficerShane KelleherSales OfficerRoger FordBarn Cottage, Bridge Street, Bridgnorth, Shropshire WV15 6AFCouncil MembersDavid Alderton (Heritage Alliance)Bill Barksfield (overseas trips)Dr Robert Carr (BA Awards)Dr Paul Collins (Conservation Award & Partnerships)Tony CrosbySteve Dewhirst (Conservation Award)Kate Dickson (E FAITH)Bruce Hedge (Membership development)Shane KelleherMichael Messenger (Website manager)Ian MillerStephen Miles (Conference bookings)Dr Tegwen RobertsPaul SaulterMark Sissons (Restoration Grants)Mark Watson (TICCIH GB National Representative)Dr Ian West (Health & Safety)Honorary Vice-PresidentsProf Angus Buchanan Sir Neil CossonsProf John Hume

Liaison OfficerDavid de Haan, AIA Liaison Office, The Ironbridge Institute,Ironbridge Gorge Museum, Coalbrookdale, Telford TF8 7DX.Tel: 01952 416026.E-mail: secretary@industrial-archaeology.orgWebsite: www.industrial-archaeology.org

COVER PICTUREGin for lifting oil from a shallow well re-erected at Ploeisti OilMuseum. The earliest wells at Romania date back to the 1850s.Remarkable similarity to gins illustrated by John Bourne in hisdrawings of the construction of the London to Birmingham Railway.

photo Bill Barksfield

When the invitation from Heritage of Industrydropped into my inbox inviting me to join the AIASpring Tour to Romania, I knew this one was tripI had to join. Since the early 1990s I had travelledall over Eastern Europe, and Romania was theonly country in the area that I hadn’t visited.

Nigel Grizzard

What did I know of Romania? Perhaps mostimportant was the link with Ceacescu. In terms ofthe cult of personality his was all over Romania asan absolute ruler from 1967 until he ended upbeing shot, with his wife, on 25 December 1989.Then there were the many Romanians working inthe UK – in the restaurants, coffee shops and astaxi drivers. I had taken a Uber taxi acrossLondon; the driver was from Iasi – pronouncedYash – and so we discussed my forthcoming trip.

On the 0625 from Stansted most of thepeople on the flight were Romanians returninghome. My neighbour on the next seat was a taxidriver from Newmarket who told me he hadworked in the UK for the last five years. Across theaisle was a grandmother, mother and daughter,aged only four months, going to see her relativesin Romania for the first time. Nearly everyonelooked smart; they were going home and had tomake a good impression.

Many people describe Romania as ‘comingout of the shadows’ and this was part of myreason for going. How much change had therebeen since the fall of Communism, what was thisEuropean nation really like and what was theIndustrial Heritage that we were going to visit?

The rest of our group were due to arrive laterin the day so I had a chance to explore some ofBucharest – a city of two million people built inthe French style with huge tree lined avenues anda parliament building, Ceacescu’s folly, so

enormous that it dwarfs everything else you see.The Ibis hotel provided great views of his ‘palace’and was a good central location for exploring thecity.

Bucharest was a city full of cars, not the oldones that I had seen on previous trips to EasternEurope but new BMW’s, Audis, Volkswagens,Peugeots, Renaults, Fords and the Romanian builtDacia. Cars are important in Romania andwherever we went the streets were full of them.The wide avenues help the traffic flow andespecially impressive are the timers on the tops ofthe traffic lights telling drivers how long theyhave to get across on the green light and howlong they have to wait for the red light to change.

Back at our hotel in the evening I met the restof our party – we numbered forty people; thirtysix from the UK, three from the USA and one fromIreland. The next morning we were to head northout of Bucharest to the city of Ploesti. We alsomet our guide for the week, Dana.

Dana was very proud of Romania; she rattledoff facts and figures about the country, both inthe past and the present; she liked its art, itscultural heritage and its scenery, but until wearrived I don’t think she had given much thoughtto its industrial heritage. She understood we werea British group here to visit Romania, but couldn’tunderstand why we were more interested in oldfactories and blast furnaces when there were somany castles and true tourist sites that we shouldbe visiting.

Key facts learnt from Dana included that thepopulation of Romania had fallen from 23 millionat the time of Ceausescu to 20 million today –caused not just by many Romanians leaving toseek new work opportunities in Europe but alsoby a sharp drop in the birth rate.

Our first stop was the oil city of Ploesti.Romania started pumping oil in 1857, two years

AIA Spring Tour Romania, 16-22 May 2016

Water ‘powered’ whirlpool for dyeing and washing woollen fabrics photo Chris Barney

INDUSTRIAL ARCHAEOLOGY NEWS—178—3

high up in the hills where since Roman times goldhas been mined. A Canadian company – RMGC,the Rosia Montana Gold Corporation have plansto redevelop the whole area to form the world’slargest open pit goldmine. The potential yield isjust a few grams per ton and the operation wouldinvolve slicing the top off the mountain anddestroying the whole village of Rosia Montana.The plans are currently on hold but the village hasbeen blighted as RMGC has already bought upmany of the houses which now lie empty.

We visited the underground workings of theRoman era and were taken on a tour of thevillage, before lunch provided by the localcommunity. Our visit was a chance to see theclash between a Canadian Mining Corporationand rural life in Romania.

Where the future is for Rosia Montana isunclear, but to the outside visitor it seems strangefor the need to destroy a whole village and wayof life to mine for gold.

After another 250 km we were in Hunedoara– one of Romania’s steel towns. Developed afterWWII, the town’s function was to produce steel ina similar way to Nova Huta outside Krakow inPoland, or the Attercliffe area of Sheffield. Likesteelworks in many countries, nearly all ofHunedoara’s steel mills have closed down, theonly steel mill left being operated by internationalconglomerate ArcelorMittal.

The town has undergone an environmentalrenaissance – free of pollution, the workers’houses and bungalows had been given amakeover and were now what a UK estate agentwould describe as ‘a selected development ofbijou homes’.

Our local guide Oana Tiganea, had studiedthe development of Hunedoara and was keen toshow us both the past and present andparticularly the soviet style housing. As one ofEastern Europe’s key steel towns it was evenvisited by Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev withan official Soviet delegation in 1962 and therehad been a famous banquet. The hall where thistook place was now undergoing a renaissance tobecome a wedding and function palace.

Hunedoara was looking forward to a new life,cleaner and greener, but also facing the question– what is the town’s future role and who createsthe jobs. Similar questions to those being asked informer steel towns in Britain.

Leaving Hunedoara, we went to nearbyGovajdia to visit an enormous nineteenth centuryblast furnace built between 1806 and 1810. Animportant monument, it worked for over 100years and had produced some of the iron for theEiffel Tower.

From Govajdia we started our journey backtowards Bucharest, first returning to the city ofSibiu for two nights. The Astra Museum ofTraditional Folk Civilization on the outskirts ofSibiu is a 96 hectare park full of exhibits,including many small mill. I was particularlyfascinated by the ‘floating mills’ that could beused on Romania’s larger rivers for milling grain.They could be transported easily to wherever thegrain was, rather than the grain beingtransported to the mill.Soviet era housing at Hunedoara photo Chris Barney

Replica California Stamps at Rosia Montana photo Chris Barney

before the United States, and in the 1930s wasEurope’s largest oil producer. We were to visit theCity’s Oil Museum and on arrival there, we weretold that Michael Portillo had visited the previousday with a film crew – so no doubt Ploesti willfeature in one of his future travel programmes.

Travelling north we reached Brasov alsoknown as Kronstadt because of the largeGermanic influence or Brasso, the Hungarianvariant of the name – a common practice in manyof the places we visited.

Brasov, like many Romanian cities isimpressive – full of historic buildings but alsomulti storey blocks of flats. A place where touristsspend days – but for us there was only time forlunch and a walk in the square.

Then back on the bus to visit La Valtori, Lisa, awater powered mill where local wool is preparedand woven into blankets. During themanufacturing process they are washed and dyedin small timber lined whirlpools. Raising the nap isachieved by passing the cloth over a bed of thornybrushwood. The set up with the antique machinerystill in working order reminded me of the town ofGalashiels in the Scottish Borders, where smallcraft weavers make individual textiles.

Distances in Romania are large and the firstday we covered 330 km from Bucharest to Sibiu,a historic city, in the heart of the large region ofTransylvania.

Next morning after another long drive wearrived at the village of Rosia Montana – an area

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The next day we visited three key sites. TheSadu Hydro Energy Museum is a hydroelectricpower plant, set in magnificent scenery, andopened in 1896. It was built by German engineersand used Budapest built (Hungarian) machinery.Still working as a power plant, it is testimony to aforgotten world of engineers and machines whichcould, and still are, able to be repaired withspanners and screwdrivers.

From Sadu we journeyed to the small town ofAvrig, to visit the glass factory. Employing over200 people, the factory produces glassware thatgoes to outlets all over Europe. Wine carafes wereon the line when we visited and the inspectionand quality control was impressive. Businesslooked brisk and next time I am in one of the UK’sdesigner outlets I must remind myself to look atthe packaging to see if the glassware came fromthis factory in Romania.

Our final stop of the day was at the Sibiurailway museum. As we were on a large coach, itwas impossible to navigate the road entrance tothe Museum. We returned the kilometre to thestation and then set off walking across therailway tracks, an esoteric pleasure denied us inthe UK and on our short walk we saw all sorts ofrolling stock, some modern, some ancient, butnearly all in use. At the rail museum there were anumber of old steam locomotives, laid up foryears, but our group’s attention was drawn to theengine house for the diesels. These engines hadbeen built in Craiova by Electroputere, Romania,and are still working on Romania’s railways. Forthe rail buffs, the Craiova Works produced forBritish Rail, the first 30 locomotives of the Class56 diesels. We were very fortunate to see therailway turntable in action as a diesel reversed

into the rail shed and another came out to go intoservice on the tracks. A truly memorable end to amemorable day.

Our final day together was spent travellingback to Bucharest but before lunch we paid visitsto two more sites. First to a section of the narrowgauge Sibiu-Agnita railway where a smallenthusiastic group have restored a small sectionof the line, managing to do so with very limitedresources. They are now able to take visitors onthis length and are working hard to extend it. Itwas good to be able to support their efforts in asmall way. The second call was to a waterpowered corn mill at Ohaba which had been builtin 1873. One pair of stones was operating as nodoubt they had for many decades. It was not a‘restoration’ but just the mill working as it alwayshad.

Lunch was at Bran, home to Bran Castle, anational monument in Romania and known asDracula’s Castle. Back in Bucharest, it was one oftheir regular ‘night of the museums’, when thecity’s numerous museums stay open until 1.00 amwith free entry, and as we arrived in the city, longlines of people were forming waiting to enter.

On the last day before the afternoon flighthome, the party split into two groups. Half of ustook a tour around Ceausescu’s monstrouspalace, said to be the second biggest building inthe world (after the Pentagon). The Romanianparliament occupies a small section but we neverfound it. At the dictator’s death it was only 80percent complete but it was decided it would becheaper to finish rather than blow it up, thoughmany Romanians would have liked to do thelatter. We were open mouthed at the scale andsumptuousness of it all. The other group visited

the observatory, not normally open to the public,but which the group was able to visit thanks toour guide, Irina’s contacts. The obviousenthusiasm of the guy who showed us around aswell as its intrinsic interest made this, some said,one of the highlights of the whole tour.

Flying back to Stansted from Bucharest, I hada chance to reflect on my week in Romania. Theold world had gone, the Soviet influences hadfaded and the younger generation – those agedunder 27 – had not lived under a communistregime. Romania had come out of the shadows; itis now a fully European nation. To take part in thetour was a privilege, a chance to see a part of theworld that has made vast strides in the last threedecades.

Thanks should go to Sue Constable for all herhard work getting the itinerary together; and toHeritage of Industry whose organisation was, asusual, impeccable and to Dr Oana Tiganea wholed us in Hunedoara and Dr Irina Iamandescuwho led the group in Bucharest. Thanks also toour guide Dana and coach driver Mihai whodrove us safely over 1,000 kilometres, the manyRomanians we met who told us proudly abouttheir museums, sites and factories and all theparticipants who made our week in Romania sointeresting and informative.

Blowing and moulding decanters at Avrig SA photo Chris Barney

Govajdia furnace photo Bill Barksfield

VISIT THE AIAWEBSITEwww.industrial-archaeology.org

INDUSTRIAL ARCHAEOLOGY NEWS—178—5

The Sibiu Railway Museumphoto Nigel Grizzard

More of the sights seen on theAIA tour of Romania

Bucharest Fillaret Technical Museumphoto Peter Stanier

Bran Castle – Dracula’s home photo Chris Barney

The group listens to Mihai Blotor, Chairman of the Friends of the Mocanica Association who are working on restoring a section of theSibiu-Agnita narrow gauge railway

photo Bill Barksfield

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Asbestos dangers

Asbestos has been mined and used throughouthistory, but at the height of the industrial periodit was revered as a wonder substance. It wasimported into Britain in vast amounts to use as aninsulating material and as a heat retardant. Itwas used liberally in workplaces, public buildingsand houses to prevent the spread of fire. Becauseof this, wherever our industrial heritage can befound – there is a risk that asbestos will also bepresent.

Sarah Walters, Derbyshire Asbestos Support Team

It was so ubiquitous in the mid-late twentiethcentury that the substance continues to be aproblem and to put lives at risk. It is estimatedthat during the last century, more than six milliontonnes of asbestos were imported into the UK.Even as late as 1997, 4,320 tonnes were shippedinto the country over the course of the year.

The Health and Safety Executive websitecurrently gives an estimate of 5,000 for thenumber of people dying from asbestos diseaseeach year in the UK.

At Derbyshire Asbestos Support Team (DAST),we have spent the past fourteen years dealingwith the consequences of asbestos use in the EastMidlands. Exposure to just a few asbestos fibrescan lead to Mesothelioma 20-30 years on.Prolonged exposure can lead to lung cancer,asbestosis or pleural plaques. We were originallyset up to provide support to those affected bythese diseases. However, because the legacy ofasbestos is so great we have increasingly workedto raise awareness. Over the past couple of yearswe have produced interactive computerprogrammes about asbestos in the home and inschools. A collaborative article in a vintagemagazine made us think more about historicalartefacts and asbestos. The renovation of oldbuildings and the collection of remnants of ourrecent past is a popular activity and may beputting many people in danger.

DAST successfully approached the HeritageLottery Fund with a project that would allow us tocollect and share information about ‘OurAsbestos Heritage’. We visit those affected byasbestos disease in their own homes and so webuild up a relationship with them. We began theproject by asking them to complete aquestionnaire telling us where and how they had

been exposed to asbestos. From here, we havebeen able to compile a list of where asbestos wasused and what it was used for. Along withphotographs, this enables us to share informationthat draws attention to where it might still bepresent.

Most people have been exposed to asbestosin the course of their work. Because our charityfocuses on the East Midlands, many peopleresponding to our questions worked in theindustries traditionally associated with thisregion. However, we have accepted completedquestionnaires from others outside our regionand also some of those responding have retiredhere from other parts of the UK. From ourresponses, the most common industries or tradesaffected are

RailwaysPower StationsPlumbingShip building and repairEngineeringJoinery

Working in the railway industry was acommon cause of asbestos exposure in theresponses to our questionnaire. This may be partlybecause we cover the city of Derby – the site of amassive works that employed a large proportionof residents. We heard from people who told usthat asbestos was used for lagging the boilersand pipes of steam engines, and for lining thecarriages. The amount of dust meant that itwasn’t just those directly handling the substancethat were affected. Even when the works movedinto the diesel era, asbestos was still used in thelocomotives.

Asbestos was also used on the wider railinfrastructure, as a visit to a railway preservationsite in Derbyshire showed. The train shed has oneof those corrugated asbestos roofs, familiar fromthe typical 1950s suburban garage that so manyof us remember from our youth. This wasprobably thought to be a sensible precaution,given the heat generated by the engines to bestabled beneath it.

Lincolnshire and the Trent Valley have severalpower stations that were built to meet thetwentieth century’s increasing demand forelectricity. And of course their processes alsogenerated huge amounts of heat, which wascontrolled with asbestos products. As with thesteam engines of the railway, all of the boilersand pipes were lagged with the substance.

Wrapping asbestos around pipework toinsulate it means that plumbers in all fields ofwork have been greatly affected – throughactions such as pipe maintenance and renewal.This particularly applies to ships. According to aBBC News report from 2012, the Medway townshave the second highest rate of asbestos deathsin the country, which is attributed to the ChathamDockyard. It is not just the large ships that wereaffected. Asbestos was also used in smallerpleasure craft as well as in caravans.

Derbyshire is also home to a brakemanufacturer that employed several people whowere later affected by asbestos disease. Althoughthese products are most associated with vehicles,all braking systems from the mid-late twentiethcentury may be affected – lifts are one example.One of our questionnaire respondents worked ata coal mine where he was exposed to asbestosdust from the conveyor belt braking system. Mr Tdescribes how he would repair brake shoes bystripping off the old lining and riveting a new onein place – a very dusty job.

A lot of the asbestos that was used has beensafely removed and disposed of by professionallylicenced workers. Where the material remains insitu it is thought to be safe if it is undisturbed andundamaged. This is less problematic in some ofthe uses – a corrugated asbestos roof is less likelyto be disturbed than a sheet of asbestosinsulation board used as an internal wall. Manyschool teachers have been diagnosed withmesothelioma after pinning children’s work toclassroom walls. It is therefore very importantthat if this kind of material is to remain in place,everyone using the area is made aware of theimplications and safety procedures are in place. Ifyou are responsible for a building which containsasbestos, you have a duty to manage the riskcorrectly.

The Health and Safety Executive website isthe place to turn to for initial advice. They have aset of downloadable guidance sheets and a list ofapproved contractors – who must be called in forremoval and disposal. There is also a helpfuldiagram of an industrial property whichhighlights all of the places where asbestos mightbe found – right down to the toilet seat andcistern. If you have any portable objects that arecontaminated (for example WW2 gas masks,ironing boards, talcum powder tins) then youshould refer to your local council waste disposalsite.

At Derbyshire Asbestos Support Team, wehope that you will now bear asbestos in mindwhile working with our industrial past. Pipework,boilers, conveyor belts, lifts, factory buildings andvintage transport should all be approached withcare – especially if they have not been subject torenovation. If any readers have any experiencesthat they would like to contribute to the project,then please do visit our website and download aquestionnaire. Use the contact page on ourwebsite if you would like a supply of our leafletsto put on display.

All these boilers would have been swathed in asbestos

INDUSTRIAL ARCHAEOLOGY NEWS—178—7

From Cornwall toMexico technologytransfer

From Spanish colonial times, the silver mines ofReal del Monte and Pachuca were the lifeblood oftheir towns. Their bonanza was a promise of life;their closure meant abandonment and decline. Sothe inhabitants of Real del Monte were filled withhigh hopes when the English Company ofAdventurers in the Mines arrived to this ailingtown in 1825, having sailed from England with1,500 tons of equipment manufactured at Hayleand Perran in Cornwall including nine steamengines with their large boilers. Real del Montecame back to life.

Belem Oviedo Gámez, Directora Archivo Históricoy Museo de Minería, A.C.,TICCIH National Representative

The landscape was transformed with enginehouses and steam boilers, wooden head framesand smoking chimneys. At the beginning, thethundering boilers and the billowing smoke wereconfusing and intimidating; afterwards theybecame a symbol of certainty.

The English company focused on the Dolores,Guadalupe, Santa Teresa, Santa Brígida and SanCayetano mines in Real del Monte. Later, it wasMexican entrepreneurs who worked the mines ofPachuca on a large scale, with the help of Cornishsteam engines; the Rosario mine, with more thanfive engine houses, was a symbol of wealth andon-going productivity in the 1860s.

Nineteenth century buildings, testimony toadvanced English technology, are still standing.During the twenty first century, they have beentransformed into a site museum and will hostdesign and arts and crafts workshops organisedby the Archivo Histórico y Museo de Minería, A. C.The building that used to house the offices of theCompany of Gentlemen Adventurers in Pachuca,is now home to an elementary school.

The Company of Gentlemen Adventurers leftin 1849, but its workers and employees did not.Cornish immigration remained constant until thefirst half of the twentieth century. Three of thefour Cornish engine houses which are stillstanding were built during the second half of the

nineteenth century: Acosta, Corteza and SanPedro La Rabia. The Acosta mine, witharchitectural vestiges from the eighteenth to thetwentieth centuries, was turned into a sitemuseum in 2001 by the Archivo Histórico yMuseo de Minería, A.C.

In 1886, tin mining within the county ofCornwall began declining steadily, sparkingsevere economic and social problems andtriggering the exodus to countries with a miningtradition. The money sent from various miningcentres around the world, of which Mexico wasone, aided and strengthened the economy of theEnglish county, which managed to overcome thecrisis.

In Pachuca, the Methodist School, built in1877, and the Episcopal Methodist Temple, builtbetween 1882 and 1900, are importantarchitectural monuments dating back to thissecond wave of immigrants with the architecturalfeatures of the latter making it the only exampleof Romanesque and Neo-Gothic atyles inHidalgo’s capital.

In 1896 Francis Rule, a very influential miningentrepreneur born in Cornwall, commissioned theconstruction of one of Pachuca’s mostemblematic buildings, known as the Casa Rule,which since 1985 houses Pachuca’s Town Hall.

This cultural and industrial Cornish heritage,combined with the technological, architecturaland cultural contributions of the many Mexicansand also Americans who worked in this miningdistrict, constitute one of Mexico’s mostimportant industrial heritages. This has beenacknowledged in the Ruta de la Plata (Silver Trail)Project organised by the Historical Archive andMining Museum.

Hidalgo and Cornwall, apart from makingsignificant contributions to the English andMexican economies, have given the world acultural and industrial wealth that is helping torevive both former mining communities and isslowly but surely being appreciated once again.

Originally published in TICCIH Bulletin 72 andreproduced with kind permission.

The Purísima Shaft of the Corteza Mine, Pachuca, with Mexican miners lined up outside in 1899Photo: AHMM, A.C. Phototeque

Engines of Prosperity: new uses for old mills A warm welcome to:Timothy Brinton, MacclesfieldMartin Chandler, AshfordElaine Sansom, Haywards HeathChristine Nicasi, CardiffMichael Boyd, Bishops CastleAnthony Pilling, LancasterBen Thomas, WolverhamptonPete Glews, DudleyChristopher Moon, TewkesburyRita Ruiz, Cuidad Real, Spain

Who have recently joined the Association

A report published by Historic England on 30 Junecalls for more developers and owners to take onmill regeneration.

Textile mills have helped to define theidentity of West Yorkshire for many generations.The first mills emerged in the late eighteenthcentury as the Industrial Revolution started toshape the landscape, economy and communitiesof the region. Few settlements in West Yorkshireare not influenced in some way by their

relationship with ‘the mill’, and the same holdstrue for many rural landscapes. They were theoriginal Northern Powerhouse.

Engines of Prosperity: new uses for old millscalls for action from developers, textile millowners and public bodies to work together tomaximise the potential of the region’s historictextile mill buildings to bring benefits to localcommunities and the economy.

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Battersea Waterworks pumping station 1991Photo Tim R Smith

Leisure and Culture Dundee worked inpartnership with Dundee Industrial Heritage inconnection with The High Mill at Verdent Worksto conserve and re-display the Boulton and Wattsteam engine.

Known as the Douglasfield Engine because it wasonce used at Douglasfield Bleach Works, it hadmost recently been in storage. An initial reportwas commissioned to assess the condition andthe feasibility of reassembling the engine.

In July 2014 grant funding of £20,000 wasreceived from The Association for IndustrialArchaeology, £40,000 from Museums GalleriesScotland and money from The Heritage LotteryFund towards the conservation, installation andinterpretation of the engine.

Geoff Wallace of Geoff Wallace Conservationwas appointed as the Conservation Engineer. Hespent a week working with Rhona Rodger (SocialHistory Curator, Leisure and Culture Dundee) andLouisa Atahari (Curator, Dundee IndustrialHeritage) identifying, documenting and labellingall the components of the engine.

John Compton (a retired Curator fromNational Museum Scotland) who had beenresponsible for the rebuild of another Boultonand Watt Beam engine at The National Museum,Edinburgh, was asked to research the Boultonand Watt archives in Birmingham to see if theinformation there could assist in the rebuild orinterpretation of the engine.

Lost Art of Wigan were appointed to conservethe engine, prepare it for display and finally to re-

erect it at the Verdent works. After muchconsideration as to whether to do the work in situor to take it to The Lost Art workshop, the enginewas removed from Dundee and transported toWigan at the end of December 2014.

At this stage, sub-assemblies of the enginewere put together as far as possible in order toidentify missing components. This also allowedfor checking of the identified components againstthe list provided from the original storage of theparts and the identification of missing parts thathad previously been included in the specification.

Where components originally produced fromcast iron were missing, patterns were made andreplacement castings produced in the foundry.Where non-cast components were identified asrequiring replacement, production of these wasalso undertaken at the Lost Art workshop. Whereexisting components were used these have beensubjected to careful cleaning.

All metal elements once cleaned werepainted according to the agreed paintspecification of zinc-rich primer, followed by afurther application of coats of an undercoatingprimer, in preparation for the top coat.

The specification for the timber tank thatencloses the air pump and condenser has beenmodified to reflect the research undertaken byJohn Compton. This has been cut away to allowthe public to see this unique element of theBoulton and Watt engine.

The engine arrived back in Dundee from theLost Art workshop in Wigan at the end of July2015. The concrete pillars and foundations had

been prepared by the builders and architects ofthe High Mill project in conjunction with Lost Art.During the erection, consideration had to begiven by Dundee Industrial Heritage to railingswhich were commissioned to blendsympathetically with the mill. Consideration alsohad to be given to health and safety in themaintenance of the engine by volunteers andpaid members of Dundee Heritage Trust.

Operational and maintenance manuals havebeen produced and training for operatives hasbeen given as part of the installation process

High Mill at Verdent Works has acomprehensive education package whichengages with the public who visit the mill andhave the opportunity to see this internationallysignificant machine working five times a day forten minutes. In addition they are given theopportunity to see a video of the engine workingand an explanation of how it was used in the juteindustry.

Dundee Industrial Heritage has expanded itsschools programmes to include themes ofBoulton and Watt, engineering, mechanisationand power and have developed new workshopsand resources catering for early years to seniorpupils. The steam power workshop has provedpopular and is enabling Dundee IndustrialHeritage to attract secondary school visits for thefirst time. They have also started a YoungEngineers Club aimed at 11-16 year olds withafter-school science and hands-on problemsolving with experts.

Completion report on the Douglasfield Engine project Dundee

Sometimes referred to as the Cringle Streetpumping station, this building was just to theeast of the much larger and more famous electricpower station. Listed grade II in 1994, it wasprobably the second oldest surviving waterpumping station in England after Kew Bridge.

Listed building consent for demolition of thispumping station was granted in August 2011 oncondition that demolition should not start beforecontracts were let for new buildings on its site.The actual demolition took place in the autumnof 2014, relatively unnoticed.

Robert Carr

It is claimed that English Heritage launched its2014 Buildings at Risk register at an event atBattersea Power Station in October whiledemolition of the pumping station wasproceeding close by. It is not likely that newbuildings will be put up on the site of Batterseapumping station for some time. The building wascleared to make a route for the transport of spoil,from the Northern Line extension works to theriverside. It is expected that up to 25 barges aweek will leave there, each carrying about 1000tonnes of earth to Goshems Farm, East Tilbury.

Here it will be used to create arable farmland. Itis expected that a total of about 600,000 tonnesof earth will be excavated during the project.

This is an example of how architecture andstyle take precedence over engineering. BatterseaPower Station is indeed iconic and well known tothe general public. And of course the architect isnone other than Giles Gilbert Scott who designedLiverpool Cathedral. Television has associated thepower station with the glamorous world of the1930s, streamlined railway locomotives andvintage sports cars. The waterworks pumpingstation, historically important as it was, was notsuch a dramatic a building as far as the averageviewer was concerned.

In the case of Battersea it would have been achoice between the pumping station and thepower station, which is now listed grade II*. Thelatter is a well known London landmark – visiblefrom a wide area – and now often illustrated inliterature promoting tourism in London. It is evenbeginning to achieve a status comparable withthe Eiffel Tower in Paris. A new £1.52commemorative postage stamp has been on salein Post Offices since 7 July 2016. The stamp showsBattersea Power Station as it was in 1976 withnow demolished buildings in the foreground. By

comparison, the pumping station was relativelyunnoticeable, even obscure.

Battersea Waterworks Pumping Station

INDUSTRIAL ARCHAEOLOGY NEWS—178—9

Prehistoric saltmining in Austria

On a recent holiday looking at Iron Age sites andartefacts we visited the salt mines in Austria atHallein and Hallstatt. While the visit to the mineat Hallein followed the usual tourist tour, atHallstatt we were privileged to visit thearchaeological dig taking place in the prehistoricmine workings, led by the archaeologicalsupervisor, Hans Reschreiter. It was fascinating. Itis likely that the salt was first exploited in thevalley during the Neolithic, period evidenced bythe discovery of a 7,000 year old antler pick in thearea. However it may only have been the surfacedeposits which were being used.

Rosemary Hughesdon

The earliest evidence for mining is from theMiddle Bronze Age but by then large scaleunderground mining was fully developed, withthree mineshafts in simultaneous use. Not all theworkings can be explored, as abandoned areasgradually close due to the pressure underground;only those areas where mudslides filled the voidscan be excavated.

The place to which we were taken was onesuch area in the Bronze Age workings, whichwere exploited by digging a vertical shaft downto the salt deposits and then excavating hugecaverns to extract the salt. The shafts were verylarge – one having a cross section of 23 x 7metres. The archaeologists can only speculate asto the reason for the large size, but the thought isthat it would allow for two-way traffic in theshaft and provide better ventilation.

The salt was mined using bronze picks, set inknee haftings. The interesting question was: howwere these used? If one tries to use them as onewould a modern pick it just doesn’t work as theonly part of the tool to contact the deposit, whetherfloor, wall or ceiling, is the angle of the haft.Fortunately, the previous week, a Russian visitor

had made a suggestion based on a type of Russianscythe! His suggestion was that the tool should beheld horizontally and the miner then rotates fromthe waist while also using a wrist action on thehand nearest to the head of the pick to bring thepick downwards towards the salt. This method doesindeed work. If anyone has any further usefulsuggestions, Hans would love to know!

Wooden shovels and scoops were used togather up the excavated salt and transfer it tobackpacks. These backpacks were unique. Unlikethe backpacks of today they only had oneshoulder strap; on the other side was a woodenhandle. This was held in the hand and could bequickly released to empty the pack withoutremoving the strap. At the shaft the salt was

emptied on to a piece of woollen cloth which wastied with rope and then hoisted to the surface. Along piece of four centimetre thick rope of limebast is preserved in the workings – it is estimatedthat it had a breaking strain of over a tonne!Leather palm protectors (small pieces of leatherwith a hole cut out for the thumb) were used toprotect the hands.

For lighting, the miners used bundles of thinlaths of pine or spruce bound together at one end.After use these were discarded on the floor of theworkings, together with broken tools and otherwaste. These waste deposits can be metres deep.

The pièce de resistance is a large and uniquestructure described variously as a ladder orstaircase. By the time we saw it the pressure hadbegun to distort it and the main timbers had beenremoved; however a replica outside the HallstattMuseum gives an idea of how it was constructed.It was designed as a kit of parts which could betaken down the mine as individual componentsand constructed in situ. It comprised long straighttimbers for the sides, each with a slot cutlengthwise into it. Into these slots were threadedthe cross members, which lay alternately uprightas treads and flat as spacers. As the structure wasat an angle of around 45 degrees, anyoneascending would stand on the edge rather thanthe flat of the treads. This is borne out by finds ofshoes, which are worn not at the toe or heel, butbeneath the arch.

Further Bronze Age remains have been foundabove ground which have been identified as brinecuring pits for salting pork. This too was done ona huge scale with each trough able to processbetween 150 and 200 carcasses at a time. So fareight such pits have been identified.

It appears that the Bronze Age minecollapsed in the thirteenth century BC and thereappears to be a gap of about 300 years before theIron Age workings started. However, as before,these new workings, which differ markedly fromthe earlier ones, appear as a fully developedsystem. The Iron Age mining was carried out bydriving horizontal adits into the mountain tofollow the veins of salt. These mine galleries werevast – one is 170 metres long, by up to 27 metreswide and 20 metres high. The miners continued touse bronze for pick heads albeit a high tin (10%or more) alloy, which made for a hard, if brittle,implement. However, the extraction techniqueswere different. The salt was no longer extractedas rubble, but as large plates. These wereproduced by making a heart shaped groovearound the section to be removed and thenextracting the two half hearts, which can varyconsiderably in size. The only two of these platesknown weigh 12 and 42 kilos respectively. Thesalt waste was ignored. It would appear thatmining finally stopped in Hallstatt around 400BC.

For me this absorbing visit was a highlight ofmy trip.

This article first appeared in the Newsletter of theSurrey Industrial Archaeology Group. Manythanks for their kind permission to reproduce it.Hans Reschreiter wields a replica pick

Replica back pack

Rope of lime bast with hand for scale

Replica ladder all photos Rosemary Hughesdon

10—INDUSTRIAL ARCHAEOLOGY NEWS—178

WoodberryWetlands

In North London, a water-supply reservoir hasrecently been opened to the public as a naturereserve. In IANews177 there was a briefdescription of the work on the ‘Coal House’ whichwas partly funded by an AIA restoration grant. Afuller account of the Woodberry Wetlands projectand the New River scheme follows.

Robert Carr

The New River, essentially a late-Elizabethanscheme for a water supply channel built in asimilar manner to a Roman aqueduct, wasconstructed during the reign of King James I.Following the 100 ft contour, it first brought gooddrinking water to London in 1613. This greatundertaking proved successful and over thecenturies highly profitable for its shareholders. Asmore and more water was required in London,many of the meanders of the original New Riverwere straightened out. In 1767 Robert Mylne wasappointed chief engineer to the New RiverCompany and was succeeded by his son WilliamChadwell who served in this capacity from 1810to 1861. Both also practiced as architects.

At some times of the year and especiallyduring winter, the water of the New River becamemurky, caused by run-off from the surroundingcountryside and villages in its vicinity. In order toameliorate this problem two large settlingreservoirs where built at Stoke Newington inNorth London, just to the east of Green Lanes.These were quite substantial, about 38 acres inextent, and more than 20 feet deep in parts .

The work was completed in 1832 and theprocedure was as follows. The water of the NewRiver was first diverted into the East Reservoir,where sediment was allowed to settle. It wasthen transferred by gravity, with the aid of asteam engine, into the West Reservoir wherefurther settlement took place. Following thesetwo stages of natural cleansing the water wasthen turned once again into the channel of theNew River and continued its way south to theterminus at New River Head, Islington.

A public highway, Lordship Road, runsthrough a ‘cutting’ roughly north-south betweenthe two reservoirs, which here are impounded byearth banks. The steam engine was housed in apumping station on the east side of LordshipRoad at the top of the east bank.

Twenty years later the Metropolis Water Actof 1852 required water companies to filter theirwater. In response The New River Company builtsubstantial sand filter beds to the south,immediately to the west of Green Lanes. Fromthen onwards, following filtration, drinking waterwas pumped to New River Head and to customersin the locality, through underground pipes andsouth of Stoke Newington the old course of theNew River gradually fell into disuse.

The remarkable Castle pumping station onthe east side of Green Lanes, built in 1854-56 in

a baronial style by William Chadwell Mylne andlisted grade II*, was equipped with six largerotative beam engines for pumping the water. Themuch smaller pumping station of 1831 onLordship Road, situated between the East andWest Reservoirs, was gradually superseded andapart from one small outbuilding, now known asThe Coal House, was demolished, probably by1900.

In the twentieth century the water of the Eastreservoir was chemically treated to inhibit thegrowth of fresh water mussels which blockedwater pipes. This treatment reduced the amountof wildlife that might otherwise have flourishedthere. The practice came to an end in the 1970sand in recent years the East Reservoir has becomesomething of a haven for wildlife, nowincorporated as the Woodberry Wetlands naturereserve, recently opened to the general public.

The first pumping engine installed at LordshipRoad in 1831 was a single cylinder non-rotativemarine type engine of 25 hp made by Boulton,Watt & Co. The New River Company obtained thisengine second hand. It was originally built for theSouth Level Commissioners, for Eau Brink Cut.This was a major civil engineering work toshorten the course of the River Great Ouse aboveKing’s Lynn. Robert and William Chadwell Mylnewere engaged on this scheme as engineers so theconnection with the New River is obvious.

Later this 25 hp engine was used for watersupply as well as for reservoir use and as theworkload of this engine continued to increase itbecame inadequate. A more powerful singlecylinder rotative beam engine of 50 hp wasordered from James Watt & Co in 1847. Thisengine was in use at Lordship Road for more than30 years being last used there in the 1880s.

This building was recently known as the ‘gashouse’. It is now called The Coal House. Thereason for the former name is presently unclear.

The surviving outbuilding from the LordshipRoad pumping station at TQ 326 874 wasprobably used for the storage of coal and as aworkshop. It might even have been used forpreparing food as the directors of the New RiverCompany seem to have been fond of dining at

Stoke Newington and there were facilities at theEast Reservoir for this to take place. This wouldprobably have been in the summer months whenthe directors made a tour of inspection of worksin the locality. It must have been a tranquil andvery delightful spot in years gone by.

If coal is stored in a building, the coal tendsto push the walls out. This can be rectified byusing iron tie rods to pull the walls back intoplace and there are a number of these insertedthrough the Coal House at Stoke Newington. Thebuilding was probably put up about the time theBoulton & Watt rotative beam engine wasinstalled in 1848. There is a charming amateurwatercolour ‘taken in August 1843’ which depictsthe first pumping station, which at least in thisillustration has a rustic character. In 1843 therewas no building on the site of The Coal House. In1835 local residents paid for the chimney of thepumping station to be altered and thewatercolour shows an extension increasing itsheight. There were a number of large houses inthe neighbourhood and the wind would havedriven smoke towards their long back gardenswhich in those days stretched right down to theNew River.

The Coal House was listed grade II inFebruary 1975. Before its recent restoration it wasin poor condition and on the English Heritagebuildings at risk register. According to the listingdetails the south end of the building had been inuse as a workshop.

Outside, on the north wall of the buildingthere is an impressive imitation-stone panel withentablature and pediment. Quite large, it has afrieze with wolves’ heads and carries aninscription recording the building of the reservoirsin 1830 – 33 by William Chadwell Mylne. There isdocumentary evidence that this panel wasprobably cast on site. In July 1839 a minute notesthat cement ‘in imitation of stone’ was deliveredto the engine house here at a cost of 60 guineas,quite a sum at that date; a workman would earnless in a year. Here we have evidence of how theNew River Company viewed itself in the first halfof the nineteenth century – as successor to theRomans.

Woodberry Wetlands – the coal house is behind the trees at the bottom right

INDUSTRIAL ARCHAEOLOGY NEWS—178—11

This commemorative panel is probably not inits original location. It could well have beenattached to the pumping station which wasdemolished towards the end of the nineteenthcentury, but saved, and moved to the north end ofthe only surviving building.

As previously mentioned The Coal House wasin a poor state of repair until recently but fundingfrom many organisations such as the HeritageLottery Fund and the Association for IndustrialArchaeology has enabled it to be restored to goodcondition. The rebuilding has been substantial; thewalls have been underpinned and repointed, thecommemorative limestone panel on the northfaçade has been cleaned and the letters madeclear using traditional stonemasons’ techniques.From inside the building a new steel staircaseleads to the roof, giving excellent views of thesurrounding area. This roof terrace is not normallyopen to the public; people might be taken up thereas part of a guided visit. The Coal House nowserves as a learning space and café for visitors tothe Wetlands which hopefully will ensure it has anincome sufficient to maintain itself.

The Woodbury Wetlands, covering 11 acres,were officially opened by Sir David Attenboroughon 30 April this year and the AIA wererepresented at this event. For a man of his age, SirDavid spoke with surprising vigour extolling thevirtues, indeed the necessity, of close contact withwildlife and the natural world. The Wetlands arestill owned by Thames Water and the EastReservoir is still in use as part of London’s watersupply. The reserve was developed incollaboration with Thames Water, Berkeley Homesand the London Borough of Hackney. The site ismanaged by the London Wildlife Trust.

The Trust hope to implement similar schemesand one on a larger scale, 520 acres, is in progressat Walthamstow. This is due to open in 2017.There are several buildings of industrialarchaeological importance here, including theCoppermill, converted into a pumping station inthe 1860s, and the purpose-built Marine EngineHouse or Ferry Lane pumping station of 1894. It isproposed to build a new brick chimney at theFerry Lane pumping station to replace the onedemolished here about sixty years ago.

Thanks are due to Brian Hillsdon of theNewcomen Society for information on the steamengines installed at Lordship Road. MalcolmTucker deserves special thanks for usefulsuggestions.

On Monday 4 July, the Lion Salt Works Museumwelcomed back its newly-restored salt wagon, intime to be the showpiece of its summer activitiesprogramme. Salt wagons, now a rarity, were oncea common sight in the three ‘wich’ salt towns ofCheshire – Northwich, Middlewich and Nantwich.But now only a few people remember thedistinctive wagons, with their pitch roof, designedto drain rainwater away from the salt bags. The£27,000 restoration of the salt wagon was madepossible thanks to a £20,000 grant from theAssociation for Industrial Archaeology and wasorganised by the Lion Salt Works Museum’sTrustees with restoration taking place at theLlangollen Railway and Carriage Works inDenbighshire, North Wales.

Nick Hunt, Chairman of Lion Salt WorksMuseum Trustees, said: “The salt wagonpresented a considerable restoration challenge asit had been out in all weathers for decades. Addedto this was the damage done by the salt to boththe wood inside the wagon and its corrosiveimpact on the supporting metalwork. Therestoration was painstaking but we are delightedby the results and extremely grateful to the AIAfor their support. The wagon, which is located atthe entrance to the Lion Salt Works will be aprominent and very fitting starting point for thosevisiting the award-winning museum.”

The Lion Salt Works Museum, one of onlythree open-pan, salt-making sites in the world,tells the story of salt and its impact on people,industry and landscape. The Museum’s wagonwas probably made in the early 1900s. At thistime, salt wagons were most frequently used onbranch lines to transport the salt from the worksto the main railway station; in this case, the two

miles to Northwich station. The wagons movedusing a windlass housed in the Lion Salt Works’Pump House, powered by a horizontal steamengine (thought to be a ‘Marcus Allen’ engine,though there is no maker’s name on it). The saltwas then usually sent by rail to Liverpool; much ofit would have been exported worldwide for useas table salt, for salting fish or for industrialpurposes.

Salt Wagon at Llangollen Railway workshops

Coal House looking South West Photo R Carr

The restoration of the Salt Wagon for theLion Salt Works Museum

One of our greatest Prime Ministers, William Pittthe Younger (1759-1806), is said to have utteredas his last words ‘I think I could eat one ofBellamy’s meat pies.’ There is also a more officialversion ‘O my country. How I love my country.’

The Bellamy’s meat pie version comes from aHouse of Commons waiter who said he wascalled out of bed late one night by a messenger ina postchaise. He was told to get up and dress andbring some of the meat pies down to Mr Pitt atPutney. Even though travelling post-haste by thetime the pies arrived Mr Pitt was dead.

Clearly Bellamy’s meat pies must have beenwell known in 1806 and they seem to have beenmade for a considerable time after that. It is saidthat years ago, but within living memory, therewas a painted advert for Bellamy’s meat pies ona wall in the Earls Court Road (Here is theconnection with Industrial Archaeology – see IANews 176 page 7. Ed.)

Painted signs can last a surprisingly longtime, perhaps as long as a century, but even so itis absolutely astonishing that Bellamy’s meat pieswere being made for something like a hundredyears.

We must also bear in mind that bothaccounts of William Pitt’s last words might befictitious. The patriotic version could have beenpolitical spin, prevalent even 200 years ago. TheBellamy’s meat pie version could on the otherhand be a masterstroke of advertising that mightaccount for the pies popularity for a wholecentury?

Does anyone remember Bellamy’s meat pies?

Robert Carr

Food processing is an important industry but withthe exception of milling and brewing I have seenvery little if any research on it, Ed .

Bellamy’s meat pies

The reconstruction of a Jacobean submarinedesigned by Cornelis Drebbel is a fascinatingproject. This kind of archaeological reconstructionis increasingly popular – the Dutch have built areplica c.1340 Cog which sailed across the NorthSea in 2015.

Robert Carr

There are now only about thirty boatyards inBritain still building wooden boats. One of theseis at Richmond Bridge on the tidal Thames whereMark Edwards and a team of boatbuildersmaintain the tradition and have constructedsome remarkable craft in recent years includingthe Gloriana, a 29 metre eighteen-oared shallopfor HM Queen Elizabeth II, her Diamond Jubileebarge – and the Drebbel, an archaeologicalreconstruction to investigate the plausibility ofclaims that three submarines of increasing sizewere built in the early seventeenth-century andworked quite successfully in the Thames.

It was written at the time that the largest ofthese submarines could travel underwater fromWestminster to Greenwich and back at a depth of12-15 feet. Information is sketchy but it is claimedthat Cornelis Drebbel had a means of absorbingcarbon dioxide and even liberating oxygen.

Unlikely though this seems, there appear to besome quite reliable contemporary accounts.

Built for a BBC television programme in2002, the possibility of rowing underwater wassuccessfully demonstrated with two oarsmen atDorney Lake, Buckinghamshire, using MarkEdwards’ twenty-first century reconstruction –named the Drebbel, after its inventor.

Cornelis Drebbel (1572 – 1633) from theNetherlands was a most remarkable man whomight in some ways be compared with Leonardoda Vinci. . Drebbel took the King on a test dive in

the Thames making James I of England the firstmonarch to travel underwater. James seems tohave been partial to underwater adventures. In1617 he visited a coal mine at Culross in Fife anddescended underground. He came up a shaftwhich was surrounded by the sea and was takenaway by boat.

Drebbel built his three submarines between1620 and 1624. The third and largest waspropelled by six oars and could carry up to 16passengers. Keep a look out for the Drebbelsubmarine replica; it has been on public display atseveral locations both here and in theNetherlands. Has anyone seen the Drebbel?

All this is beginning to sound rather like DrWho. But people do forget. We only have toremember that until September 1976 we used tohave a service of futuristic Russian hydrofoils onthe Thames running between Tower Pier andGreenwich. Reminiscent of Jules Verne, this publicpassenger service has almost totally faded frompopular memory. Until 2003 there was a regularairline service of delta-winged jet aeroplanesflying to New York and back, carrying a hundredpassengers at more than 1,300 mph and a heightof 60,000 feet. If you were rich enough asupersonic day trip to New York was a possibility.Does that sound like science fiction?

12—INDUSTRIAL ARCHAEOLOGY NEWS—178

One of the entrants in this year’s Best CreativeReuse of an Industrial Building award was therestoration of the sack hiring building on theWilts & Berks Canal. Enormous numbers of jutesacks were needed in arable farming. Refundabledeposits on all forms of packaging were normalthroughout industry until recent times.

Bruce Hedge

The sack house was operated by the West ofEngland Sack Hiring Company. It stood at theentrance to the wharf and basin at the end of theWantage arm of the Wilts & Berks Canal. Thecanal ran from Semington on the Kennet & Avoncanal to Abingdon-on-Thames, reaching Wantagein 1810. Useful to the GWR during construction ofthe Paddington to Bristol line, it was subsequentlyput out of business by that same railway.Wherever the two ran alongside each other, if the

canal had a wharf, the railway built a siding.Coal from the Somerset field was the main

reason for the canal’s existence, but as isevidenced by some buildings in Wantage, goodquality stone from the Bath region also found itsway into the town. Agricultural produce found itsway outwards, Clark’s Flour Mill, now WessexFlour Millers, is just across the road from the sackhouse. The canal and was formally abandoned byAct of Parliament in 1914.

After the draining of the canal basin atWantage in the 1920s the site was used as ahaulage and scrap yard until bought forredevelopment by Barrett Homes. The sack hirebuilding was acquired by the Wilts & Berks CanalTrust for a nominal sum and the developerscarried out the necessary extensive remedialworks. A local team from the canal trust then setabout refitting the building as an exhibition spacepromoting its aim of restoring as much of the oldcanal as possible. The only other buildingremaining from the old canal days is theWharfingers house, now converted to residential.

The building measures 7 metres by 3.5metres and is built largely of brick and roofedwith slate. The developers were required to retainas much as possible of the original features andmaterials. Repainting was carried out using theoriginal colour scheme determined by analysis ofthe old paintwork. The original sign of the sackhiring company has also been retained.

Internally, original wall plaster was keptwhere possible and where this could not be donethree-coat lime plaster was used. The original

fireplace has been retained as has the internaldoor after appropriate repairs. Althoughinformation boards and displays have been putup on the internal walls the original structure isclearly understandable.

As part of the Wilts & Berks Canal Trust thebuilding’s future is assured. The Trust is a memberof the Wiltshire, Swindon & Oxfordshire CanalPartnership which consists of all the localauthorities along the former route, the Canal &River Trust, Thames Water, the I.W.A. and NaturalEngland.

The earlier photograph shows the building asin was in the 1950s, clearly it would not havebeen still standing had not some remedial workbeen carried out between then and 2013/14when the full restoration was carried out.

This entrant was not successful; the eventualwinner will be announced in the autumn.

The Drebble photo Colin Smith

The Sack House on the former Wantage Canal wharf

Cornelius Drebble and the first submarines

INDUSTRIAL ARCHAEOLOGY NEWS—178—13

Speaking up forIndustrialArchaeology

On 23 April the AIA held a workshop on ‘Speakingup for Industrial Archaeology’ in Ironbridge. Theday was aimed at local heritage groups andvolunteers who are involved in speaking up forindustrial archaeology in their local areas.Speakers included members of groups who areinvolved in looking after a range of different sites(including buildings and buried sites) as well asnational organisations who support groupsinvolved in local advocacy, including the Councilfor British Archaeology and Civic Voice. Theworkshop was live-tweeted using the hashtag#AIAadvocacy.

The day started with an overview of thecurrent situation for industrial archaeology inEngland by Dr. Mike Nevell (Director of AppliedArchaeology at the University of Salford and AIAcouncil member). This was followed by a rousingtalk by Ian Harvey from Civic Voice about theCivic movement, how local groups can influencedecision makers and why it is so important thatwe all speak up for the things that we care aboutin our local areas.

Then we heard from Elizabeth Heaton(Friends of Friar Gate Bridge) and David Moorefrom the Lichfield Waterworks Trust.

We continued with a session by Rob Lennoxfrom the Council for British Archaeology (CBA) onnational planning policy, how local groups canengage with the planning process, and the CBA’sLocal Heritage Engagement Network project.

There was some animated discussion overlunch before John Batchelor lead a session onsocial media ‘the message and the medium’.

In the final session we heard from TomLonsdale (Save Butterley Spillway), Barry Tylee(Hunshelf Parish Council) and Andrea Grimshaw(Dig, Discover, Enjoy) about their experiences oflocal advocacy.

Finally, there was a panel discussion with thespeakers, who took questions from the floor andshared their thoughts and comments on keyissues.

And so ended an information-packed andanimated day, which explored why it’s soimportant that we speak up for industrialarchaeology (perhaps now more than ever!) aswell as outlining some of the challenges of doingthis at a local level. The workshop alsohighlighted the importance of joint working andsharing information and experience across thesector.

Thanks again to everybody who contributed.We have already had some really useful feedbackfrom the day, including suggestions for futureworkshops, and we went away energized andenthused about speaking up for industrialarchaeology, and supporting the amazingvolunteers who do so much to protect andcelebrate our shared industrial past.

Tegwen Roberts

AIA Councilmeeting held inLondon 18 June 2016

Serious concern was expressed at the 18 JuneCouncil meeting over the problems with Taylor &Francis (T&F) and the confusion caused by themembership renewals. At the time of the meetingthere were over 100 former members who hadnot renewed. Many had tried to but failed; manywere confused by multiple demands anddemands for the incorrect subscription. Clearly,T&F were unprepared for the task of taking overthe several titles they acquired from ManeyPublishing. Alternative membership managementhandling methods are under discussion, but forthe moment the Association is working closelywith T&F to resolve the immediate problems.

The idea of moving the publishing elementaway from T&F was rejected because of theadvantages of the Routledge imprint and theirconsiderable experience in selling the journal byelectronic access to libraries and universities.

Other matters discussed and agreed:Future conferences – South East Midlands, 25 –30 August 2017. Contractual arrangements havebeen agreed with Moulton College, nearNorthampton. A number of themes have beenidentified including, transport infrastructure, theboot and shoe industry, ironstone industry andworkers housing. There are a number of uniquesites in the region such as the Cardington Airshiphangers. Full details, booking forms, etc. will beissued early next year.

The main 2018 conference will be held inCaithness from 22 to 28 June and organised byMark Watson. It was Mark who organised thehighly successful Dundee conference in 2013.However, the Association’s AGM will be heldduring a short two day event in Sheffield duringSeptember. Along with the AGM there will be thepresentation of awards to the various winners,study visits and a presentation by an eminentspeaker.

The production of gazetteers is an importantpart of the Association’s work. Unfortunately,there will not be one for the South East Midlandsconference. John Stengelhofen has producedthese for many years, but, following hisretirement, Council is investigating how futureones are to be produced.

Contact with our affiliated societies is notalways easy, but is vital, so it was agreed that abrief article should be sent to each Societynewsletter editor to raise awareness of theAssociation’s work.

After the Ironbridge Practical Day on 23 Aprilwe set up a Survey Monkey (online survey) andsent it out to all the participants. Twenty-two of the24 replied. Apart from a complaint about the roomtemperature and there being no refreshments onarrival, the conference was well received;‘informative and inspiring’ was typical comment.

Six Restoration Grants, totalling £84,400were approved; thanks to our anonymous donorfor his continuing support.

Concern was expressed by our endangeredsites officer, Amber Patrick, over the imminentdeparture of our contact at the Council for BritishArchaeology (CBA). We act as agents for the CBAand they notify us of threatened sites. In the pastfour months we were advised of 29 potentialindustrial sites; comments were made on eightcases.

As for the IA Review, it was reported thatT&F’s turnaround for the publication has beenquicker than Maney’s. From now on articles willbe available online immediately they are ready,even if the printed version does not come out fortwelve months or more.

Bill Barksfield reported on the proposedAIA/Heritage of Industry tour of Holland 15 – 21May 2017. The Friday afternoon of that tour willsee a joint Anglo-Dutch seminar. Because of theimportance of this event it was agreed that asenior member of the Council (President orChairman) would attend.

Historic England’s Industrial ArchaeologyPanel no longer exists and has been replaced byan annual meeting, the first of which was held inApril, email communications continue with anexpert advisory group.

The next Council meeting will be on 8October at Coalbrookdale.

Bruce Hedge

Report on All PartyParliamentaryGroup for IndustrialHeritage

Despite the political turmoil following the EUReferendum, the All Party Parliamentary Groupfor Industrial Heritage (APPG IH) meeting wentahead on 29 June 2016. The Chairman, I think,was glad to have something different to focus on,but even so it was not surprising that only he andone other MP attended. As well as the Chairman,Nick Thomas-Symonds MP, and Christine Rees MP(Neath), the meeting was very well attended bythe industrial heritage sector – even better thanusual. The AIA was represented by Keith Falconer(Chair) and Tony Crosby (APPG IH Secretariat).Others attending included Miles Oglethorpe(Historic Environment Scotland) and Ian Bapty(IHSO), plus representatives of the ArchitecturalHeritage Fund, National Museum DirectorsCouncil, Heritage Railway Association, FakenhamGas Works and Waltham Abbey Royal GunpowderMills.

The Chair began by outlining his aspirationsfor the Group, its output and impact. He issuggesting three strands. The first is a conciseManifesto on the Values & Benefits of theIndustrial Heritage which he would use as thebasis of his introductory speech at the secondstrand/event, a Westminster Hall debate. The thirdstrand/event would be a series of enquiry

14—INDUSTRIAL ARCHAEOLOGY NEWS—178

sessions on Sustaining the Industrial Heritage inTimes of Austerity. He envisages four sessionswith up to five speakers at each to give evidenceon particular themes such as the significance ofBritish industrial history, the response of thenational statutory organisations, funding forconservation of the heritage, and good practiceexamples. The proceedings of these sessionswould then result in a report to Government. Hehopes that this can all take place in the autumn.

Sir Neil Cossons then addressed the meetingand began by reiterating Britain’s long anddistinguished industrial history and heritage,which is well respected internationally, the UKbeing a role model for the conservation of itsindustrial heritage. He continued by recalling thepublic opinion survey which showed howimportant industrial heritage is to the public –most people have family connections to and rootsin Britain’s industrial past. If this heritage isvalued it needs to be cared for in a sustainablemanner and the stories which emanate from itneed to be recorded and told. The industrialheritage needs to be preserved for futuregenerations so that the monuments of theindustrial era are understood in the same way asare Stonehenge, Hadrian’s Wall, abbeys andcountry houses. Most sites are run by localvoluntary groups and local authorities, and theirsustainability is being challenged by austerity andgenerational change. There is a need, therefore toredefine what we are doing – it is no longer justabout preserving interesting places andmachinery, but championing how industrialheritage contributes to the economy,communities, the environment and education.

The need to engage with MPs and Peers wasreinforced so that they understand the widerange of benefits that can be achieved whenconserving the industrial heritage and a numberof good practice examples were mentionedincluding Middleport Pottery and the PortlandWorks in Sheffield.

Tony Crosby

2016 RestorationGrants

This year the Association has allotted the £20,000to the Leigh Building Preservation Trust towardsthe restoration of their magnificent Yate andThom engine £8,500 to the Dawn Sailing BargeTrust for restoration of the foc’sle, £20,000 to theFriends of Hemingfield Colliery for repairs to theirwinding house roof; £1,000 to the PenistoneCinema Organ Trust for their MelotoneElectrostatic unit; £20,000 to the Norfolk Millsand Pumps Trust which will go to Billingfordwindmill for repair to their stocks and sails and£20,000 to Wheal Martyn Trust for their 18 footwaterwheel. This is a total of £84,400 for 2016and the Association is profoundly grateful to ouranonymous donor who, during the last sevenyears has provided over £350,000 for restorationprojects which has attracted a further £80,000 ingift aid.

Peter Stone of the Transport Trust watched by Jon Willis of Crofton.

Another award for Crofton pumping station

Message from the Chairman Keith Faulkner

Encourage your MP to attend the APPG

I urge all members to lobby their respective MPs to attend future meetings of the All PartyParliamentary Group on Industrial Heritage. The Chair (Nick Thomas-Symonds, Lab.) hopes to set up anenquiry at the October/November a meeting which should result in the publication of a report toGovernment on the values and benefits of the industrial heritage.

On Saturday 25 June a Transport Trust Red Plaquewas unveiled at Crofton pumping station on theKennet & Avon canal. The plaque highlights theimportance of Crofton’s engines in the story ofBritain’s industrial past.

The Transport Trust is the only nationalcharity to promote and encourage thepreservation and restoration of the country’stransport heritage in all its forms. The unveilingwas to have been done by Sir William McAlpine,President of the trust but, owing to ill health hewas unable to attend. Instead the unveiling wasdone by Peter Stone, one of the leading trustees.By way of consolation a smartly dressed PhilHarding, of Time Team fame, was among theassembled guests. There have been 85 RedPlaques awarded so far, one third of which havegone to waterways schemes.

Whilst there I was able to view therestoration of the boiler-water feed pond towhich the Association made a grant of£7,000.There are still a few problems with leaksand it has since been discovered that thepipework from the boilers is badly corroded. The

pond was created about the time of theinstallation of the 1812 Boulton & Watt engine, sonot too surprising that after 204 years hiddenproblems have come to light.

Another problem the pumping station has isthat the whole of the bottom section of the boilerwill need re-riveting during this winter before theboiler inspector will permit steaming in the 2017season. The total cost of this is estimated at£27,500. An appeal has been launched andanyone who wishes to donate can do so on theCrofton Pumping Station web-site.

Crofton, however, is not stuck in the past; it isinvestigating the field of ‘mechanitronics’. Onedefinition might be: ‘an approach aiming at thesynergistic integration of mechanics, electronics,control theory and computer science in order toimprove and/or optimise functionality’; or, as itwas explained to us, combining new technologywith Crofton’s 200 year old technology. I lookforward to further unveilings at the pumpingstation!

Bruce Hedge.

INDUSTRIAL ARCHAEOLOGY NEWS—178—15

News fromCornwall

The first house to be lit by gas is to receive anextensive renovation thanks to Heritage Lotteryfunding. Murdoch House in Redruth was whereWilliam Murdoch, at that time working forBoulton and Watt in Cornwall pioneered the firstpractical system of gas lighting in the world. Thebuilding is now occupied by local Charity Redruth2000 and used for educational and communitypurposes. A grant of £9,950 will fund a fullrefurbishment of the building and website.

The National Trust team at Levant Minewhich is exploring ways of opening up parts ofthe mine to visitors have discovered a mound ofdomestic rubbish on a level between two shafts.The rubbish includes bedsteads and old fridges.Some of it has been there for 30 years. The pilewhich could be 50 feet deep also includes cattlebones, possibly from a beast falling down theshaft. Workers installing a wooden platform some15 metres from the surface found the carcasssmashed by a Belfast sink thrown into the shaft.Removal of the rubbish which needs to bechecked for hazardous substances will require acrane with a grab which can operate in a space astight as two metres by a metre. A quantity ofminers’ tools has also been found.

March saw yet another report that SouthCrofty Mine could be reopened. A Canadiancompany, Strongbow Exploration has anagreement giving it the right to acquire the minefrom administrators. South Crofty has an activemine permit valid until 2071. Strongbow has anagreement with Galena Special Situations MasterFund Ltd, which is the hedge fund arm of Dutchcommodities giant Trafigura, and the only securedcreditor of Western United Mines, holder of themine permit and currently in administration.

2016 sees the tenth (tinth?) anniversary ofthe Cornish Mining World Heritage Site. Part ofthe celebrations will see a colossal steampowered ‘man engine’ puppet stride the length ofCornwall, leaving Tavistock on 25 July andarriving at Geevor Mine on 6 August. The ‘manengine’ is a cast iron Cornish miner standing 40feet tall. Miners and bal-maidens in costume willanimate the machine stoking its furnace as itsteams through Cornwall. See goldentree.org.ukfor details.

Geevor Mine reports that visitor numbers in2015 at 43,063 were the highest in its 22 years asa heritage site and up 21% on the previous year.Much of this is due to the efforts of PendeenCommunity Heritage which manages the sitewith the underground tour the main attraction,taken by 98.5% of site visitors. However, there isa suggestion that the presence of a certain Cap’nPoldark in the vicinity cannot be discounted as areason.

Graham Thorne

Letters

Prefab help wanted

Would you like to help us build our nationalarchive? There are free training places andvolunteering opportunities with the PrefabMuseum’s Heritage Lottery Fund project.

The Moving Prefab Museum and Archiveproject is about collecting stories, recordingmemories and photographs about prefabs andmaking them available for others to enjoy, nowand in the future, through a national archive, onour website and through an interactive map.

Individual stories and photos are often theonly link to our own and collective past, to whatwent before us; the photo or a story passed downthe generations. Wherever we go people want toshare their happy memories of living in theirprefab.

Would you be willing to help us recordmemories and stories of prefab residents, and putthem into an archive for future generations? Youwill learn about interview techniques, how to userecording equipment (including smartphones andtablets) and how to make the archive accessible.

Free training places in oral history techniquesand aspects of archiving are available and we willbe running archive workshops so we can catch upon all the latest acquisitions! We may not be ableto track down and document all the 156,623prefabs that were manufactured and erectedacross the UK, but with your help we can have agood try!

Every week people tell us about prefabs wedidn’t know existed. We have been directed toprefabs still lived in or long demolished, on farms,used as storage, catteries, as holiday homes orclubrooms, and links to community archives or

Facebook groups. We put them on our map andwhere they have a history, a photo or memoryattached it makes them come alive.

Many local, regional and national archivesare being digitised and made available online.Can you help us find information about prefabsthrough these and other resources to enrich ourcollective knowledge?

The training is free. The first date is 20 August2016 for oral history training, at St John’sCommunity Centre, Glengall Grove E14 (2minutes from Crosssharbour DLR station). Lunchand refreshments are provided at the training andthe archive workshops; also we will pay for yourtravel expenses to and from the venue. We hopeto meet Prefab scouts at our UK-wide events.

Find out more by contacting prefabmuseum@gmail.com

Elisabeth Blanchet

More holes in doors

I don’t know whether there have been anyanswers to Robert Carr’s holey door puzzle (IANews 168), but I have one suggestion. I haverecently re-opened an old doorway in my house,which had been sealed on the inside face by apanel of early chipboard. It had been roughlyhand drilled from the face with a random patternof ½ inch holes to give a good key for lime plaster,the first coat having been reinforced with a layerof hessian prior to the final skim. The attachedimage shows the rear of the panel, with plasterstill bedded in many of the holes. It would haveworked just as well on a boarded door.

John Boucher

Waltham Abbey Royal Gunpowder Mills

Waltham Abbey Royal Gunpowder Mills is the sitewhere for over 300 years until 1991 gunpowderand other explosives were continuouslyproduced, and where research and testing wereundertaken. It is now a protected site, being inpart a Scheduled Ancient Monument, having 22listed buildings and an SSSI, and is open to thepublic to enjoy and learn about its history. A verypopular education programme is provided forlocal schools. However, for a number of years nowthe visitor attraction has been losing money,having to be subsidised from an endowment setaside when the Trust that manages the site wasestablished. Discussions have, therefore, beentaking place to find a way to make the sitefinancially viable, and continue to preserve andconserve this internationally important industrialheritage asset. There is no doubt that the site is atrisk and, particularly a number of the importantbuildings, both listed and not listed.

A way forward has been proposed whichinvolves a commercial young people’s outdooreducation provider taking over a number of thehistoric buildings, part of the outdoor space andbuilding new accommodation. This would provideWARGM with income which could be used tosubsidise the visitor attraction, leaving theinterest on the endowment to fund preservationand conservation work. A planning applicationwas submitted along with an application for agrant from the Heritage Lottery Fund. Theplanning application was considered in early Junebut was refused. This means that the site remainsat risk, although discussions are underway as tothe next steps to be taken to secure the future ofthis important site, its structures and publicaccess.

16—INDUSTRIAL ARCHAEOLOGY NEWS—178

HLF grant to PrefabMuseum

The Prefab Museum has received £73,600 fromthe Heritage Lottery Fund for an exciting project,The Moving Prefab Museum and Archive, basedin London. Led by Elisabeth Blanchet and JaneHearn and supported by prefab enthusiasts fromacross the UK, the project will focus on post-warprefabricated homes and their former and currentresidents to document and create a nationalarchive which celebrates prefabs and prefab life.

The project will enable former and currentprefab residents to tell their stories of lives livedin extraordinary homes, and will provideopportunities to be trained in prefab research,archiving and oral history. Through events acrossthe UK the project will discover locations,information and precious memories of prefabswhich will be shared through quarterlynewsletters, on a website with an interactive mapand catalogue, and a physical archive.

2016 marks the 70th anniversary of theTemporary Housing Programme and, although onlysupposed to last for 10-15 years, some prefabs stillstand, lived in and loved by their residents!Starting life in an empty prefab in March 2014, thePrefab Museum tells a story that resounds today –of housing shortages and innovative solutions thatwere embraced by their residents and paints apicture of social, domestic and working-class lifefrom 1946 to the present day.

Time is running out for the remaining prefabsas the original occupants grow older and morefrail and their homes scheduled for demolitionand redevelopment. The museum aims to recordand document this important part of post-warrecovery and our shared social history.

Commenting on the award, ElisabethBlanchet, joint director of the Prefab Museum,said: “We are overwhelmed with happiness andgratitude to have received the support of theHeritage Lottery Fund and are confident thatthrough this project we will elevate the post warprefab to its rightful place as a nationaltreasure!”

The former British Ambassador, Sir AlanCollins, said: “Prefabs are a key part of our socialhistory. They played a vital role in providingaccommodation after so many houses weredestroyed in the 1939-45 War. They were homefor a generation of children. I know as I was oneof them! I am delighted therefore that theHeritage Lottery Fund has agreed to help withpreserving such an important aspect of Britain’sheritage.”

Neil Kinnock, said: “Prefabs were built rapidlyto provide brilliantly designed, comfortable,affordable homes. When one was allocated to myfamily in 1948 we escaped terrible housing andfelt blessed. I’m delighted that the Fund is helpingto preserve this truly precious and practical partof the people’s heritage. Who knows, they mightshow how to combat a housing crisis in thiscentury?

See letter on page 15

Frome Silk Mill Restoration plaque unveiled

The completion last year of the conversion of theFrome Silk Mill into a creative hub with 224 artsand craft studios and its popular exhibition andevents space, was one of the successful entrantsin the first year of the AIA’s Creative Re-use of anIndustrial Building Award. The Associationcelebrated the European Industrial and TechnicalHeritage Year 2015 with the launch of this awardand a plaque marking the success of the Silk Millwas unveiled on Wednesday 27 April.

The restoration of the Silk Mill, the gateway

to the Saxonvale site, has been a remarkableachievement that began some ten years agowhen Damon and Kate Moore acquired thederelict mill which had lain empty and unlovedfor over 30 years. The opening of the new SilkMill Gallery in 2008 in the adjacent laundry blockwas to prove a watershed in the restorationproject. The community support generated byholding events including exhibitions, workshopsand musical performances proved a keycomponent in the renovation of the main four-storey section of The Silk Mill. Extensive externalmasonry and roof repairs were followed by beamand joist renovations and a team of volunteers,led by members of the Moore family, built a hugespiral staircase, laid the floors and replaced eachof the 72 windows like-for-like.

Keith Falconer, AIA Chairman, accompaniedby AIA Award judge Mark Watson of HistoricEnvironment Scotland and many of the Silk Millstenants, toasted the award of the plaque andKeith congratulated Kate and Damon Moore forspearheading the growth of alternative creativesectors in Frome with the restoration of the SilkMill.

Training to manage historic ships

In 2014, National Historic Ships UK, inpartnership with a range of traditional vesseloperators, launched a project under the title,‘Shipshape Heritage Training Partnership’ (SHTP).The aim of this Heritage Lottery Funded projectwas to help arrest the decline in the traditionalseamanship skills that are integral to the future ofthe UK’s operational historic vessels.

Over the course of the two year trainingscheme, a skills mapping exercise was carried outto identify the specific skills that the SHTPtrainees needed to operate and maintain the fivehistoric vessels in the scheme. This includedexamining the sailing skills whilst at sea and thepractical skills needed when laying up andmaintaining the vessels over the winter months.

Presentation of award to Frome Silk Mill. Damon Moore holds certificate, Kate Moore is below the wall plaque. AIAChaiman Keith Faulkner is between them.

INDUSTRIAL ARCHAEOLOGY NEWS—178—17

Sandfields pumpingstation

Good news from the Lichfield Waterworks Trust,formerly known as the Friends of SandfieldsPumping Station. The trust is now in negotiationswith Persimmon Home Ltd and is working toagree a licence for access to undertake a siteinvestigation/assessment study that will last sixmonths. The site was sold to Persimmon PLC in2003 who signed a Section 106 planningagreement stating: ‘It is intended to include thePumping Station within the development atChesterfield Road, retaining the listed part of theproperty and demolishing the newer structure.The beam engine would be left in its originalsetting and the structure refurbished to includetoilet and parking facilities.’

The trust see the issue of the licence as thefirst stage of an ongoing process to hand backSandfields Pumping Station to the public, and asignificant step towards protecting this uniquepiece of industrial heritage. It has been a verylong haul.

The trust was formed in 2015 with the objectof restoring the pump house and its 1871, 150hpCornish engine which could pump two milliongallons a day against a head of 355 feet. It has a65 inch cylinder and a nine foot stroke. Itremained in use until 1927 when it was replacedwith a set of two Sultzer horizontal Uniflowsteam engines.

The building which is grade II* was designedby Edward Adams of London. As with other watersupply schemes of that era it was a somewhatbelated response to appalling outbreaks ofcholera in the South Staffordshire towns ofDudley, Walsall, Tipton, Bilston and Wednesbury.

T.W. Rammell, Inspector of the Central Boardof Health reporting on Wednesbury in 1851stated: “The natural sources of water have mostlyfailed and been diminished by reason of themining operations carried on in the parish andneighbourhood. Consequently the inhabitantssuffer a want almost amounting to destitution inregard to this important element, having to send,in many instances, a great distance to procure itand at a very considerable expense. The poorerpeople are generally obliged to use water lying instagnant pools, filthy and unwholesome in theextreme….endemic and contagious diseasesprevail at all times”.

ERIH UK meeting

On 8 June, twenty delegates from England, Wales,Scotland and Ireland met at Great DunmowMaltings in Essex for the Summer 2016 ERIH UKChapter Meeting. Excellent presentations about‘Crowdfunding’ and ‘Heritage Crime’ were wellreceived by delegates and generated livelydiscussion. These presentations can bedownloaded by going to the ERIH website.

Greatness Mill

In Kent, in August 2015, the remains of a cornmill and its outbuildings, a decrepit survival, werealmost totally cleared away. What will happennext?

Robert Carr

In Mill Lane at TQ 534 568 in Bat & Ball,Sevenoaks, Kent, a remarkably ramshackle millcomplex survived until very recently – in fact untilAugust last year. In 1980 you might just haveseen such a mill, but it was quite an astonishingsight by 2010. Just what thissite looked like can readily beappreciated from the currentversion of Google Streetviewwhich was taken in October2014.

A survey of the mill complexwas carried out by WessexArchaeology circa 2007. This iscurrently available on theInternet and contains excellentplans and some photographs.There was a scheme, approvedby the local authority SevenoaksCouncil, to demolish most of thebuildings on the site but toretain the main mill, the MillHouse and mill cottage. The Millitself was listed grade II but wasdelisted recently.

Greatness Mill was established as a silk mill inabout 1760 by Peter Nouaille, a Huguenot. The silkbusiness prospered for a time but by 1828 themanufacture of silk had come to an end and themill then functioned as an ordinary corn mill andcontinued to do so into the early twentieth century.Unfortunately it was almosttotally destroyed by a fire in1928. It was then completelyrebuilt on the same footprintso that the exterior closelyresembled the original butmodern materials were usedfor the interior. Followingrebuilding the mill probablyoperated as an electricallydriven roller mill.

The plan approved by the local authority wasto demolish almost everything on the site but torebuild the mill itself so as to retain its originalcharacter. Google Streetview clearlydemonstrates that it was quite a prominentlandmark, particularly looking south along MillLane. Changes to the interior were allowed inorder to convert the building for residential usebecause, being constructed from relatively

modern materials, this aspect wasnot regarded as historic.

However, in late August 2015 alocal newspaper, The SevenoaksChronicle, carried the shock horrorheadline ‘Diggers move in as iconicSevenoaks mill is destroyed to makeway for 26 new homes’. According tothe article which followed the millwas completely demolished exceptfor the walls at ground floor level andrag stone and brickwork detailing.

A recent visit to Mill Lanerevealed that apparently ordinaryhouses were being built on the site– see photograph. The mill cottage

had disappeared, and there did not appear to beany rebuilding of the main mill taking place.

This might be a misunderstanding of what isactually going to happen; it could be thatrebuilding of the main mill has not yet

commenced. Do we have a local member whocould report on what is happening here? If thismill site is to be almost totally destroyed it wouldbe a sad loss for Kent. However, it might also beargued that what was demolished last year was amere replica of little value.

Greatness Mill and mill cottage gone photo R Carr

Greatness Mill before demolition

New houses under construction photo R Carr

Appeal from thePresident of TICCIH The International Committee forthe Conservation of IndustrialHeritage

Making the most of and expanding ourstrong relationship with ICOMOS,International Council on Monuments and Sites

As part of our continuing effort to contribute tothe conservation of industrial heritage worldwide,and arising specifically from the recently renewedMemorandum of Understanding between TICCIHand ICOMOS, I ask for your consideration andaction. We have agreed and are determined toenhance our relationships with ICOMOS on boththe national and international levels. As a key partof those relationships, we need to maintainexplicit liaisons with relevant officials and bodies.In particular, I urge you to promote theawareness, acceptance and application of theDublin Principles (Joint ICOMOS – TICCIHPrinciples for the Conservation of IndustrialHeritage Sites, Structures, Areas and Landscapes).

This advocacy can certainly be accomplishedat the national level through direct contact withnational governmental and NGO officials, andthat is surely a desirable action. However, webelieve that we can increase effectiveness byworking with our ICOMOS partners, especially incountries where ICOMOS has a strongestablished position in general heritage matters,but may not be advocating currently for industrialresources. Our intention is to leverage existingrelationships to multiply impact and attention toindustrial heritage.

Thank you, Patrick Martin TICCIH President

An abbreviated version of the Dublin PrinciplesJoint ICOMOS – TICCIH Principlesfor the Conservation of Industrial Heritage Sites,Structures, Areas and Landscapes

Adopted 2011

PreambleAround the World, a great diversity of sites,structures, complexes, cities and settlements,areas, landscapes and routes bear witness tohuman activities of industrial extraction andproduction. In many places, this heritage is still inuse and industrialisation is still an active processwith a sense of historical continuity, while inother places it offers archaeological evidence ofpast activities and technologies. Besides thetangible heritage associated with industrialtechnology and processes, engineering,architecture and town planning, it includes manyintangible dimensions embodied in the skills,

memories and social life of workers and theircommunities.

The global process of industrialisation overthe past two centuries constitutes a major stageof human history, making its heritage particularlyimportant and critical to the Modern World.Precursors and beginnings of industrialisation canbe recognized in many parts of the world wellback into ancient times

The industrial heritage is highly vulnerableand often at risk, often lost for lack of awareness,documentation, recognition or protection but alsobecause of changing economic trends, negativeperceptions, environmental issues or its sheer sizeand complexity.

Over the past decades, growing research hasgreatly contributed to a better appreciation of theindustrial heritage. ICOMOS and TICCIH wish toexpand their cooperation by promoting thefollowing Principles to assist in thedocumentation, protection, conservation andappreciation of industrial heritage as part of theheritage of human societies around the World.

Definition: The industrial heritage consists of sites,structures, complexes, areas and landscapes aswell as the related machinery, objects ordocuments that provide evidence of past orongoing industrial processes of production, theextraction of raw materials, their transformationinto goods, and the related energy and transportinfrastructures. Industrial heritage reflects theprofound connection between the cultural andnatural environment, as industrial processes –whether ancient or modern – depend on naturalsources of raw materials, energy andtransportation networks to produce anddistribute products to broader markets. It includesboth material assets – immovable and movable –, and intangible dimensions such as technicalknow how, the organisation of work and workers,and the complex social and cultural legacy thatshaped the life of communities and broughtmajor organizational changes to entire societiesand the world in general. Industrial heritage sitesare much diversified in terms of their purpose,design and evolution over time.

I Document and understand industrialheritage structures, sites, areas andlandscapes and their values

Researching and documenting industrialstructures, sites, landscapes and the relatedmachinery, equipment, records or intangibleaspects is essential to their identification,conservation, and the appreciation of theirheritage significance and value. Human skills andknowledge involved in old industrial processesare a critically important resource inconservation.

Researching and documenting industrialheritage sites and structures must address theirhistorical, technological and socio economicaldimensions to provide an integrated base forconservation and management.

Thorough knowledge of the industrial andsocioeconomic history of an area or country or

their links to other parts of the world is necessaryto understand the significance of industrialheritage sites or structures.

II Ensure effective protection andconservation of the industrial heritagestructures, sites, areas and landscapes

Appropriate policies, legal and administrativemeasures need to be adopted and adequatelyimplemented to protect and ensure theconservation of industrial heritage sites andstructures, including their machinery and records.

Integrated inventories and lists of structures,sites, areas, landscapes their setting andassociated objects, documents, drawings andarchives or intangible heritage should bedeveloped and used as part of these effectivemanagement and conservation policies andprotection measures.

In the case of active industrial structures orsites of heritage significance, it must berecognized that their continued use and functionmight carry some of their heritage significance

Protection measures should apply tobuildings and their contents since completenessor functional integrity is especially important tothe significance of industrial heritage structuresand sites.

III Conserve and maintain the industrialheritage structures, sites, areas andlandscapes

Appropriate original or alternative and adaptiveuse is the most frequent way and often the mostsustainable way of ensuring the conservation ofindustrial heritage sites or structures. New usesshould respect significant material, componentsand patterns of circulation and activity.

Wherever possible, physical interventionsshould be reversible, and respect the age valueand significant traces or marks. Changes shouldbe documented.

In case of prospective redundancy,decommissioning, and / or adaptation ofindustrial heritage sites or structures, theprocesses should be recorded including, forexample, where components have to bedemolished and machinery has to be removed.

IV Present and communicate the heritagedimensions and values of industrialstructures, sites, areas and landscapes toraise public and corporate awareness,and support training and research

Programmes and facilities such as visits of activeindustrial heritage sites and the presentation oftheir operations as well as the stories andintangible heritage associated with their history,should be implemented

18—INDUSTRIAL ARCHAEOLOGY NEWS—178

INDUSTRIAL ARCHAEOLOGY NEWS—178—19

E-FAITH in Antwerp

At the latest weekend meeting of E-FAITH in June(attended for the AIA by Mark Watson), the maintopic for discussion was the apparent (to some)decline of civil society in the face of austerity,rather than any filling of the gaps by voluntarygroups given impetus by 2015 European Year ofIndustrial and Technical Heritage. OrganiserAdriaan Linters gave participants insight from hisjob in the 1970s, listing buildings in thedocklands, when the few other people aroundwere long-distance lorry drivers, and warehousescould be bought for almost nothing compared tothe high values they now have, thanks to a turn-around in perceptions of dockland heritage.

The meeting was held in the Zuiderpershuiswhich is a hydraulic pumping station of 1883 nowused for cultural purposes. Antwerp is a very goodexample of an active port that is proud of itsmaritime past. St Felix warehouse for examplecontains restaurants and the city archives, whileretaining hydraulic jiggers served by its ownaccumulator tower. There is an importantcollection of cranes managed by MAS. The riverwharves are lined with steel-framed warehouses,some retaining quarantine pens for animals. Thepilot house is expected to become a hotel.Another converted warehouse, the FoMuphotography museum, is at risk due to localgovernment reorganisation removing a countytier. Visitors may also go underground by meansof a pedestrian tunnel with wooden escalators, orby tours of the sewers -wellies provided!

St Felix Warehouse jigger

Zuiderpershuis hydraulicpumping station

all photos Mark Watson

St Felix warehouse courtyard

Two fires at the disused factory in County Tyronein June are being treated by police as arson. Thefirst fire was started at Herdman’s Mill in SionMills on Friday 10 June and caused ‘substantialdamage’, police said. The second a day latercaused further damage. The mill was previouslytargeted by arsonists in October 2015.

The mill, which once employed more than1,000 staff and was described as the ‘Rolls Royce’of the linen industry, ceased spinning in 2004 inthe face of competition from China and thecompany that owned the mill went intoreceivership in 2011. In 2014 it was bought by alocal lottery winner who planned to restore thebuildings which are listed B+ and convert them tonew uses.

Previously a Donegal based firm had wantedto build an anaerobic digester on the site toprocess waste and generate electricity but thiswas strongly opposed by local residents.

It is claimed that the old mill, built in 1835 bythe Herdman brothers, is the earliest fireproof millin Ireland. The site continued to be developeduntil about 1888. Powered by the River Mourne,turbines were installed in 1900 to replace theoriginal four wheels. The 14-foot head producedup to 1000hp.

The Herdmans’ vision was to create a moral,God-fearing, temperate, educated, non-sectariancommunity around a flax-spinning business in thenorthwest of Ireland which was a prolific flax-growing area. They built a model village, a school,

churches, recreational and sporting facilities andsucceeding in creating a community whereeveryone, of both religious traditions, lived andworked together for 170 years.

Arson attacks at Herdmans Mill

Herdmans Mill photo Kenneth Allen

20—INDUSTRIAL ARCHAEOLOGY NEWS—178

The AIA is a key member of the HLF IndustrialMaritime & Transport Group which meets everysix months to share information and advice aboutthe industrial heritage sector. The group meets inlocations which have benefited from HLF fundingand Boathouse N0 4 was the venue for this June’smeeting. The building and its present use couldnot have been a more appropriate for the IM&TG.

No. 4 Boathouse is a product of the rapid re-armament in the late 1930s, and a rare exampleof an interwar heavy engineering shop. It wasdesigned for the maintenance and fitting out ofsmall boats up to 40 tons, and constructed ofreinforced concrete with a riveted steel frame, asaw tooth roof profile and facades designed withreference to contemporary American factories.Construction of the building stopped as theSecond World War began, and a corrugated ironwall was hastily constructed at the southern endof the building, which otherwise would havestretched as far as Victory Gate. This ‘temporary’corrugated wall remains today.

The building was saved from demolition afew years ago after a campaign by Save Britain’sHeritage and has now been restored andconverted into a Boatbuilding Skills TrainingCentre home to the International BoatbuildingCollege Portsmouth and Highbury College. Thesetwo colleges train a new generation of studentsin the techniques of traditional boatbuilding andother related skills that are still very muchrequired today to build and conserve woodenboats. On a mezzanine floor The Forgotten Craftexhibition tells the story of small boats in theBritish Navy, including a display of several smallcraft. The exhibition overlooks the mainworkshop, so visitors can watch real boatbuildingin action. This level also contains a classroom anda restaurant and bar with magnificent views outover the HMS Warrior and the Solent.

The IM&TG meetings are organised by an HLFteam which now consists of Adam Tyson – thepoint of contact for IM&T matters, Mike Buckleythe Team Support Officer and Sara Croft the newHLF Head of Historic Environment and receives

reports from its constituent members. The AIAreported on the All Parliamentary Party Group onIndustrial Heritage which the Associationcurrently convenes and also reported itscontinuing concerns over various preserved sitesincluding the lamentable demolition of SnibstonDiscovery Centre, the threat of closure of the two

Lancashire Mill Museums and the inappropriateplanning proposals for Waltham AbbeyGunpowder Mills. On a brighter note the AIA wasable to report its Practical Day on Advocacy andthe production of the resulting CBA ResourcesSheet which would be of great value toorganisations seeking advice on sustainability.

Other contributions included Henry Cleary’s,(Director of the Maritime Heritage Trust) updateon the Reconnections Conference in Liverpoollast October and the follow-up seminar in April atwhich the lessons resulting from the conference

were mulled over, Hannah Cuncliffe’s update ofthe Shipshape Training Project a HLF funded Skillsfor the Future programme while commonconcerns over viability of preserved sites andheritage practices were expressed by ABTEM andthe Heritage Railway Association.

The HLF team provided an internal update.

There was to be a third round of the Skills forthe Future programme and details of theResilience and Heritage Endowmentprogrammes would be announced at the end ofJuly. The current Strategic Plan was to beextended to 2018 to allow Ros Kerslake, the newChief executive to bed in and as well as the newChairman of Trustees. It was noted that Sir NeilCossons had recently been appointed a HLFTrustee.

Keith Faulkner

On the 1 June AIA Chairman Keith Falconer andAmber Patrick, the co-ordinator of the BestCreative Re-use of an Industrial Building Awardscheme, presented a plaque to the team thatsaved Millend Mill, Eastington from derelictionand turned it into eleven apartments with a newwaterwheel providing some of the energy.

Millend Mill was one of the many textile millsin the Stroud area which went out of textilemanufacturing and, although subsequently usedfor other purposes, was desperately in need of anew use by the end of the twentieth century. Hadthe current owners/architect/builders not takenon and completed the work on this site, the millmight have been lost.

The original and main mill was constructed in1818 as a water powered textile mill. A Boultonand Watt engine was installed by Henry Hicksaround 1821.

The mill also had a variety of uses over theyears, perhaps the most notable of which was asa mechanical maltings which resulted in theaddition of a double floored kiln on the corner ofthe site. There was a major fire in 1922 and maltproduction later ceased, but other uses weremade of the buildings until the late 1980s afterwhich it stood empty. As part of the 2009 schemeto redevelop the mill all the later additions wereto be demolished and work on recording of thestanding building was undertaken by Stephen

Mills a member of GSIA and a noted expert onthe textile mills of the Stroud area.

The high quality conversion of the main millby Grantbourne Ltd, owned by RobertLamplough, witnessed the careful reinstatementof masonry features obscured or lost in the latertwentieth century developments and thereinstatement of an elm waterwheel capable ofgenerating several kilowatts of power. Thearchitect responsible for the Millend project wasDidier Ryan of Undercurrent Architects, specialistsin creative regeneration projects, andconstruction work was by local builder BobBrewer of Bob Brewer Ltd. In total more than £2million was invested in the mill’s regeneration.

Boathouse No4 Portsmouth dockyard photo Keith Faulkner

HLF Industrial Maritime & Transport Group Meeting,Boathouse No4 Portsmouth Dockyard

Award for Millend Mill, Eastington, Gloucestershire

INDUSTRIAL ARCHAEOLOGY NEWS—178—21

Genius Loci

Genius Loci is an EU funded project and is aninitiative resulting from the 2015 EuropeanIndustrial and Technical Heritage Year.

Its purpose is to draw attention to theheritage of small-scale industrial enterprises, to(re)evaluate their heritage significance and toincrease understanding and appreciation bytourists and the general public.

Project partners are based in Italy, Spain,Hungary, Malta and Belgium, while E-FAITH isoffering its expertise and network to the project.

The following sectors have been identified aspriorities for the first phase of the project:

• the traditional fermented drinks industry(beer, wine, cider,…) and the process ofdistilling strong spirits from these;

• clay processing industries (bricks, tiles, rooftiles – but also refractory bricks, pottery,drainage pipes, majolica,…);

• traditional textile crafts including weavingand the production of traditional Europeantextile fibres (eg flax, hemp).

The sites and museums that are included in theGenius Loci project will all receive a freeINDUSTRIANA label.

To be included, one must download andcomplete the questionnaire from theINDUSTRIANA website. The labels will be allottedfrom mid-September and sent to the addresses ofthe sites or museums who have completed thequestionnaire and who have been selected.

There will be between 100 and 150 labelsattributed in a first phase.

INDUSTRIANAINDUSTRIANA is a community of European

industrial and technical heritage sites andmuseums and their visitors which aims topromote them and establish contacts betweenthem.

It is an initiative launched with the supportand under the patronage of E-FAITH, theEuropean Federation of Associations of Industrialand Technical Heritage – as one of the permanentresults of the 2015 European Industrial andTechnical Heritage Year.

By applying the official European IndustrialHeritage Shield to the facade of an industrialheritage site, conservation area, industrialbuilding, museum, villages or at the secretariataddress of an industrial heritage organisation,you can show that you are part of a Europeanmovement that puts the preservation andpresentation of industrial and technical heritageon the European agenda.

If you are interested in receiving anINDUSTRIANA label contact E-FAITH

In the member states of the European Unionand the member states of the Council ofEurope there are thousands, even hundreds ofthousands, of sites and places that bear witnessto the European industrial past and traditions.They all are eligible to acquire and use the

INDUSTRIANA facade label to announce andpromote their existence and to inform the passer-by about their history and backgrounds.Places where one can visit a steam engine or theremains of a coalmine, the humble places wherethe traditions of an old technique or craft still live,the more recent industrial plants, windmills andpower stations...each site has something to tell topassers-by, tourists and local residents. Each sitethat would like to tell its story, and the role itplayed in the past, but also its value for today andtomorrow.

They can be:

• Ruins or remains of an industrial building,even the places where little is seen on thesurface but where archaeological tracesremain below ground level;

• museums presenting the history of industry,science and technology (ranging from abrewery museum, a textile museum, themuseums of local industry, maritime, railwayand transport history museums;

• traditional and ‘museum’ workshops,producing traditional products using ancienttechniques, as an old weaving workshopwhere traditional cloth is produced on an oldloom, the workshop of a maker of woodenshoes or baskets, a paper maker, a smithy ora foundry;

• the traces, bridges and viaducts of an oldrailway line which may have been turnedinto a footpath or a bicycle trail, its derelictrailway stations or signal boxes,...or which isnow used as a tourist railway where oldtrains are running;

• industrial buildings that have been re-used: atextile mill or a warehouse changed toapartments, a brewery that has become acultural or exhibition centre, an old hangarnow a sports centre;

• sites that are landmarks in theirneighbourhood such as a blast furnace, awater tower, a harbour crane or the chimneyof a demolished textile mill;

What are the advantages of having and applyingthe facade label?

• You show clearly that you are committed tothe preservation and presentation of yourindustrial and technical heritage and the siteitself;

• you are on the map of all the industrialheritage locations over Europe – giving aunique overview of what exists in thedifferent domains and in your region;

• you will attract attention and visitors,according to their interest, not only peoplefrom the region but from all over Europe;

and last but not least... you promote and supportthe European industrial and technical heritage.You support the movement and the commitmentof so many volunteers and associationscampaigning in favour of the safeguarding andinterpretation of it !!!

Nominations forhonoursThe Department for Culture, Media and Sportconsiders nominations for candidates whoseactivities fall within its remit, i.e. sports, thecreative industries, including fashion design andadvertising, art, music, film, museums, tourismand hospitality, libraries, heritage, archaeology,broadcasting and radio.

Nominees should be those people who havemade a difference in their field of work orcommunity – people who have gone that extramile. Nominated individuals are considered by anumber of independent advisory committees whodecide upon a final list that goes forward to thePrime Minister.

By the time this edition of IA News isdistributed it will be too late to nominate even fornext year’s Queens Birthday Honours and thedeadline for the 2018 New Year’s Honours will benext April, so if you wish to put forward anyworthy candidate it is not too early to be thinkingand planning to do so.

The industrial archaeology world has beenpoorly represented recently – though withnotable exceptions.

Must Farm dig endsThe ten month dig at Must Farm nearPeterborough which has revealed, perhaps, moreabout bronze age life in Britain than we have everknown, has come to an end and work begins onthe detailed study of the amazing collection ofartefacts recovered. From an IA point of view themost significant find was a complete wheel, ametre in diameter, made of oak planks with itshub intact, which was uncovered in February.

From an industrial angle this might bechallenged by a find in the last week of the digwhen Susanna Harris, an ancient textiles expertfrom Glasgow University, studying anunprepossessing bundle of blackened fibres,found a reel of thread spun from plant fibre, finerthan a human hair and what about the wovenlinen described as finer than the lightest oftoday’s fabrics,

Bronze age wheel excavated at Must Farm

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The value ofcommunitygenerated research

Historic England set up an enquiry to assess:The amount of historic environment research

being undertaken by community groups and thepotential scholarly value of this research inenhancing other resources, in particular thoseused to support the planning system.

The results highlighted the extraordinaryvolume of brilliant work undertaken by voluntaryresearchers and community groups. It also raiseda number of issues about the degree to whichsuch work is given the attention and prominenceit deserves; recommendations for how thesituation could be improved were outlined in thereport which was written by Rob Hedge,Community Project Officer and Aisling Nash,Historic Environment Advisor, Archive andArchaeology Service, Worcestershire CountyCouncil.

Conclusion 1Voluntary and community historic environmentresearch over the past five years has covered avast range of topics and investigative techniques.It is estimated to be in the region of 12,000projects and a total of over 20,000 discreteresearch outputs. The difficulties in accuratelyquantifying such research, which is notsystematically collated, mean that this is likely tobe a very conservative estimate.

The research generated has significant valueand largely untapped potential to enhanceresearch resources and HERs (HistoricEnvironment Records), which could have apositive impact on the sector’s ability to manageand protect the historic environment.

RecommendationsHistoric environment professionals need to takethis into consideration in developing andenhancing research resources. Community-generated research is frequently seen in terms ofthe outcomes and the value of the process, but alltoo often the research value of the outputs hasnot been recognised.

Conclusion 2Dissemination of research is currently haphazardand largely contingent upon the focus of theresearchers, existing networks of contact, and thefunding of the project.

Local history groups are far less likely thanthose with a focus on archaeology to sendresearch to HERs.

RecommendationsThe sector urgently needs to examine how thewide range of outputs generated by voluntarysector research can best be captured andincorporated into historic environment researchresources in a systematic and efficient manner.

Conclusion 3The local history sector is largely disassociatedfrom the process of creating and updating historicenvironment research resources. Relationsbetween parts of the historic environment sectorare at times unequal and unsatisfactory, with toolittle appreciation for the value of others’ roles.

Recommendations: Closer links should be encouraged betweendifferent services and bodies that are recipients ofhistoric environment research, including but notlimited to HERs, Record Offices/Archives, localstudies libraries and national heritage bodies,County-level working groups or forums to discussand share information on voluntary andcommunity-generated research received and inprogress would help to disseminate informationand help to prevent duplication of effort and theproblem of information silos.

Conclusion 4: Awareness of research frameworks is currentlylow in the voluntary and community sector.Efforts to improve accessibility and promotion areessential if wider use and more inclusivedevelopment of research frameworks is to beachieved.

Industrial Explorer WeekendAround OxfordCars, marmalade, blankets andmore22 – 25 September 2016Led by Sue Constable.

Oxford has been described as ‘a city of dreamingspires’ dedicated to the pursuit of learning and itcertainly took its time catching up with theindustrial revolution. As late as 1850 there waslittle sign of industry, mostly the city was one ofsmall tradesmen, shopkeepers and servantsheavily dependent on the University.

But towards the end of the nineteenthcentury there was demand for gas, electricity,clean water and consumer goods while a varietyof industries appeared throughout the city.

The seeds of Oxford’s most famous industry,the motor car, were not sown until 1912 but afterWW1 manufacturing developed rapidly at Cowleyturning Oxford into a major industrial centre.

Industry started earlier in nearby Abingdonand Witney and the three towns together make afascinating study.

The tour will begin on the Thursday eveningand will finish mid afternoon on Sunday.

We will be staying in Abingdon and will travelout from there on foot to local sites and in acomfortable mini-coach to sites in thesurrounding area.

If you are interested in joining the tour on anon-residential basis please contact us for furtherinformation: bill@heritageofindustry.co.uk

The cost of the tour is including 3 nights bed& breakfast, transport etc is £430 per personsharing, single supplement £140.

Help to protectlisted buildings

Stopping the Rot is a new guide from HistoricEngland that provides information designed tohelp local authorities protect privately ownedlisted buildings.

While the owners of listed buildings are notunder statutory obligation to maintain theirproperty in a good state of repair, it is in theirinterests to do so. Equally, if it becomes evidentthat a listed building is deteriorating, or beingallowed to deteriorate, local authorities can takeaction to ensure repair work is done.

There are a number of options for localauthorities to help them take action includingUrgent Works Notices, Repairs Notices andSection 215 Notices. This guide provides anoutline of these, step-by-step advice on the use ofthe main procedures, case studies, and a selectionof specimen letters, notices, schedules andagreements.

ERIH Annual Conference26 to 29 October 2016 | Porto,PortugalEuropean Industrial Heritage – How to tell the InternationalStory

From its beginnings, the Industrial Revolution wasnot just a British phenomenon, it wasinternational – “globalization” is not a new buzzword! The new technologies quickly spreadacross the world, particularly in Europe, and thismarked a major turning point in history. Almostevery aspect of daily life was affected in someway and, as a result, there were strongsimilarities across countries and cultures in themethods of production and ways of life – we alldug the same coal.

Each industrial heritage site, every city; andeach worker’s dwelling has an internationaldimension to its history and this provides a hugetreasure trove of fascinating stories which can bepresented in ways that appeal to people of allages and backgrounds.

Do we do this? Unfortunately not. Ourpresentations mainly focus solely on the localhistory and rarely touch on the wider, Europeanstory.

Should we change this? Yes, we should.Telling the story of a site’s international links andrelevance is a great opportunity to widen thesite’s appeal and to attract new visitors andrepeat visitors. New stories for new visitors!

For details of the conference and bookingform go to the ERIH website.

INDUSTRIAL ARCHAEOLOGY NEWS—178—23

PUBLICATIONS

Local Society and other periodicals received

Abstracts will appear in Industrial Archaeology Review.

Bristol Industrial Archaeological Society Journal, 48, 2015

Dorset Industrial Archaeology Society Bulletin, 45, May 2016

Histelec News: Newsletter of the South Western ElectricityHistorical Society, 62, April 2016

Hampshire Industrial Archaeology Society Focus on IndustrialArchaeology, 86, June 2016

Greater London Industrial Archaeology Society Newsletter, 283,April 2016; 284, June 2016

Hampshire Industrial Archaeology Society Journal, 24, 2016

Historic Gas Times, 87, June 2016

ICE Panel for Historical Engineering Works Newsletter, 149, March2016

London’s Industrial Archaeology, 14, 2014

Midland Wind and Watermills Group Newsletter, 114, April 2016

Norfolk Industrial Archaeology Society Newsletter, March 2016

North East Derbyshire Industrial Archaeology Society Newsletter,62, May 2016

Northamptonshire Industrial Archaeology Group Newsletter, 138,Spring 2016

Northern Mine Research Society Newsletter, May 2016

Piers: the Journal of the National Piers Society, 119, Spring 2016

Scottish Industrial Heritage Society Bulletin, 78, March 2016; 79, June2016

Somerset Industrial Archaeological Society Bulletin, 131, April 2016

South West Wales Industrial Archaeology Society Bulletin, 126, June2016

Surrey Industrial History Group Newsletter, 210, May 2016

Sussex Industrial Archaeology Society Newsletter, 170, April 2016

Sussex Mills Group Newsletter, 170, April 2016

Trevithick Society Newsletter, 171, Spring 2016

WaterWords: News from the Waterworks Museum, Hereford, Spring2016

Welsh Mines Society Newsletter, 74, Spring 2016

Yorkshire Archaeological Society Industrial History SectionNewsletter, 97, Late Spring 2016

BooksEarly Main Line Railways edited by Peter Cross-Rudkin, Six MartletsPublishing, 4 Market Hill, Clare, CO10 8NN. ISBN, 308pp, 94 illus, colour.

Eighteen learned papers and an introduction presented at the first EarlyMain Line Railways Conference held at Caernarfon in June 2014. They coversubjects related to economic, political, social and cultural progress, and tobusiness incentive and practice, as well as developments in structural,architectural and building techniques and practice, and material progress.Although the main focus is on railways in the British Isles there are alsoarticles concerning railways in Egypt, India, Columbia, Argentina and NorthAmerica. The period covered runs from 1830 with the opening of theLiverpool and Manchester railway up to about 1870 by which time it wasconsidered that the main parameters of the railway system had beenestablished.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel: The Life of an Engineering Genius, by ColinMaggs, Amberley Publishing, The Hill Stroud, GL5 4EP, 2016, ISBN 978 14456 4065 5, 309pp, 45 illus. £20 hbk.

This full scale biography presents a portrait of a complex, ambitious anddetermined genius. The Brunel that emerges is not without flaws. He mademistakes, both personal and technical – he wasn’t always right but neveradmitted he was wrong. Drawing on Brunel’s diaries, letters and businesspapers we see the real Brunel, a more human figure, emerging from behindthe towering structures and machines he created. An appendix with aselection of his letters is particularly revealing.

West Midlands History, The Great Exhibition 1851, Spring 2016,available from History West Midlands, £10 incl P&P

The West Midlands was central to many facets of the Exhibition. Theiconic Crystal Palace which came to symbolise the exhibition was designedby Joseph Paxton, the head gardener at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, therevolutionary glass came from Chance Brothers and the iron structure fromFox and Henderson - both in Smethwick.

Indeed, the very concept and idea for the Exhibition owed much to theBirmingham Exhibition of Manufacturer and Art which Prince Albert visitedon 17th November 1849.

Throughout the Crystal Palace visitors saw the industrial innovation andimportance of the West Midlands in exhibits of commodities fromBirmingham, the Black Country, Ironbridge and the Potteries, and when theyneeded refreshment it was provided by the Malvern company of J.Schweppes and Co.

This edition of History West Midlands with fifteen articles on theExhibition includes a fold out plan, prepared from contemporary records,showing its amazing size and scope.

Plenty of water at the mill at Ohaba Romania photo Bill Barksfield

Taking water at Parkside from coloured views on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway byR Ackermann 1831

24 © Association for Industrial Archaeology, August 2016Registered in England under the Companies Act 1948 (No. 1326854) and the Charities Act 1960 (No. 277511)

Registered office: c/o IGMT, Coach Road, Coalbrookdale, Telford, Shropshire TF8 7DQProduced by TBC Print Services, Blandford Forum, Dorset DT11 7FP

DIARY

6 September 2016ERIH IN THE UKNational Mining MuseumNewtongrange nr Edinburghj.b.lloyd31@gmail.com

6 – 11 September 2016INTERNATIONAL MININGHISTORY CONFERENCELinares, Spainwww.mining2016linares.com

9 – 14 September 2016AIA ANNUAL CONFERENCE,TELFORDThe Association’s AGM and annualconference

9 October 2016BICENTENARY CELEBRATIONOF THE STIRLING ENGINEWaterworks Museum Hereford

22 October 2016AIA PRACTICAL WEEKENDIron Furnaces of the GorgeDetails on the AIA website

26 – 29 OCTOBER 2016ERIH ANNUAL CONFERENCEPorto, PortugalSee page 22

29 October 2016ROADS AND TRANSPORTCONFERENCEDevizes Town Hall

12 November 2016EMIAC 91Christ’s Hospital School, LincolnPloughshares into swords

6 May 2017EMIAC 92CROMFORD THREADSNorth East Derbyshire IndustrialArchaeology Society nedias.co.uk

11 – 13 May 2017INTERNATIONAL EARLYENGINES CONFERENCENewcomen and colleaguesachievements untainted by thesmoke screens of WattElsecar, South Yorkshire

25 – 30 August 2017AIA ANNUAL CONFERENCE,SOUTH EAST MIDLANDSBased in Northampton

20 – 22 October 2017E-FAITH WEEKENDBarcelonaFurther details in IA News 179

22 – 28 June 2018AIA ANNUAL CONFERENCE,CAITHNESS

9 – 16 September 2018TICCIH CONGRESS Chile Industrial HeritageMaking a Sustainable Future byUnderstanding the Past

INDUSTRIAL ARCHAEOLOGY NEWS(formerly AIA Bulletin ISSN 0309-0051)ISSN 1354-1455

Editor: Chris Barney

Published by the Association for IndustrialArchaeology. Contributions should be sentto the Editor, Chris Barney, The Barn, BackLane, Birdingbury, Rugby CV23 8EN.News and press releases may be sent tothe Editor or the appropriate AIA RegionalCorrespondents. The Editor may betelephoned on 01926 632094 or e-mail:aianewsletter@btinternet.com

Final copy dates are as follows:

1 January for February mailing1 April for May mailing1 July for August mailing1 October for November mailing

The AIA was established in 1973 to promotethe study of Industrial Archaeology andencourage improved standards of recording,research, conservation and publication. Itaims to assist and support regional andspecialist survey groups and bodies involvedin the preservation of industrial monuments,to represent the interests of IndustrialArchaeology at national level, to holdconferences and seminars and to publish theresults of research. The AIA publishes anannual Review and quarterly News bulletin.Further details may be obtained from theLiaison Officer, AIA Liaison Office, TheIronbridge Institute, Ironbridge GorgeMuseum, Coalbrookdale, Telford TF8 7DX. Tel: 01325 359846.

The views expressed in this bulletin arenot necessarily those of the Associationfor Industrial Archaeology.

Information for the diaryshould be sent directly to theEditor as soon as it isavailable. Dates of mailingand last dates for receipt ofcopy are given below. Itemswill normally appear insuccessive issues up to thedate of the event. Pleaseensure details are sent in ifyou wish your event to beadvised.

More Diary Dates can befound on the AIA website at

www.industrial-archaeology.org

AIA tour at the entrance to the Roman workings at Rosia Montana goldmine in Transylvania. Mr Sorin Jurca, vice president of theRosia Montana Cultural Foundation, explains the history.