AIA News 140 Spring 2007

INDUSTRIAL ARCHAEOLOGY

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

E FAITH � Hatfield Tip Slip � Japan � Kirkaldy Testing MuseumCanal Boat Weighing Machine

168SPRING

2014

I must confess that the name La Chaux-de Fondsdid not immediately arouse my interest. But anylingering doubt about its importance was quicklydispelled by a visit to the impressive collection ofmasterpieces of timekeeping housed in itsfabulous international watch-making museum.Those more knowledgeable than I will of courseknow this Swiss town in the Jura mountainsrebuilt along rational lines following a fire in1794 and the third largest in Switzerland’sFrench-speaking area, is the centre of the Swisswatch-making industry. It also boasts one ofSwitzerland’s first railways (1857) and is thebirthplace of Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, perhapsbetter known as Le Corbusier.

Our hosts were the Haute École ArcConservation-Restauration, based in Neuchatel,serving the heritage sector as a non-commercialresearch and training centre and offering a widerange of courses in the fields of preventiveconservation and restoration. They include athree-year Batchelor of Arts in Conservation. Wewere shown work being carried out on a self-propelled baby carriage, where research wasnecessary to establish the exact nature of thematerials before restoration.

The main themes of the conference, held inthe watch-making museum, were EndangeredIndustrial and Technical Heritage and theEuropean Industrial Heritage Year 2015. The Yearhad been endorsed by the European Council andover 100 organisations in 18 European countries.

Bringing the Coffin Works back to life wasproject manager Kate Dickson’s paper on theBirmingham Conservation Trust’s restorationscheme. It was in these works that the Newman

Brothers manufactured high-quality metal handlesand ornaments for coffins from 1894 to 1999. Thesite was very vulnerable and to save the buildingsfrom being demolished, English Heritage awardedgrade 2* listing in 2000. Offices and workshopswill be provided for rent to creative businesses toprovide income to support a museum. Volunteersplayed a very important role throughout.

The industrial heritage of Lyon in Franceformed the basis of a presentation by Jean-PaulDumontier, Chairman of Usines Sans Fin. Thehydroelectric power station of Cusset, on theoutskirts of Lyon, is at the heart of a project toharness the innovation of the past to inform thefuture not only of Lyon but the region as a whole.

Approaching Barcelona by air, three tallchimneys are the only witnesses to a failedcampaign to save the former power station ofSant Adria de Besos. Closed in 1995, when all itsmachinery was removed, Assumpcio Feliu,President of E-Faith, used the site to illustrate thechallenge posed by endangered industrialheritage sites.

A paper on the restoration of a Benz motor of1898 was the contribution of Célia Fontaine fromthe Haute École ARC. This demonstrated theirapproach to conservation involving thoroughresearch to fully understand the vehicle. We werealso shown an intriguing computer-generatedvideo of the engine in operation after restoration.

A hydro-electric power station, atRheinfelden in Germany, illustrated a part failure,part success, jointly presented by RomainJeanneret and Wolf Meyer zu Bargholz.Constructed in 1898, this very impressive buildingboth inside and out was demolished in 2010.

2—INDUSTRIAL ARCHAEOLOGY NEWS—168

INDUSTRIALARCHAEOLOGY

NEWS 168Spring 2014

Honorary PresidentProf Marilyn Palmer63 Sycamore Drive, Groby, Leicester LE6 0EWChairmanMark Sissons 33 Burgate, Pickering, North Yorkshire YO18 7AUVice-Chairman (elect)Keith FalconerSecretaryDavid de HaanAIA Liaison Office, Ironbridge Gorge Museum,Coalbrookdale, Telford TF8 7DXTreasurerJohn Jones,Hines Farm, Earl Stonham, Suffolk IP14 5HQIA Review EditorsHelen Gomersall & Dr Mike Nevell14 Church Hill, Luddenden, Halifax HX2 6PZIA 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, Worcs 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)Bruce Hedge (Membership development)Michael Messenger (Website manager)Stephen Miles (Conference bookings)Paul Saulter (E FAITH)Mark Watson (TICCIH GB National Rep)Dr Ian West (Health & Safety)Honorary Vice-PresidentsProf Angus Buchanan Sir Neil CossonsProf John Hume Stuart B. Smith

Liaison OfficerDavid de Haan and Anne Sutherland (assistant), AIA LiaisonOffice, The Ironbridge Institute, Ironbridge Gorge Museum,Coalbrookdale, Telford TF8 7DX. Tel: 01740 656280. E-mail: [email protected]: www.industrial-archaeology.org

COVER PICTUREKirkaldy’s 1874 machine. This is single-acting, waterhydraulic powered and has a designed load capacity of1,000,000 lb – 446 UK tons – 500 US tons at 6700 psi.The actuator is 18 inch diameter and 6 foot stroke. Seepage 9 Photo Colin Jenkins

E FAITH in Switzerland The 7th European Industrial and Technical Heritage Weekend took place from 25 to 27 October 2013.This annual event is a highlight of E FAITH’s year (European Federation of Associations of Industrialand Technical Heritage). As would be expected, the meeting covered a wide variety of themes relatingto preservation, conservation and reuse.

Paul Saulter

Dinner between Serrières and La Presta Photo: Adriaan Linters

INDUSTRIAL ARCHAEOLOGY NEWS—168—3

Fortunately, the No 10 turbine and generatorwere saved to be documented and restored usingmodern techniques to allow a properinterpretation of its manufacture, the context inwhich it was used and the many repairs madeduring its 100 plus years in operation. Today, it ison view at the new power station.

Dr Jur Kingma, E-FAITH’s Vice-President, in hispresentation, outlined the history of the woodenwarehouses in the Zaan area in the Netherlands;their use in connection with the Baltic trade, theirdestruction by fire, neglect or the need for morespace, and their second life in those that survivedas a visitor centre, restaurant, fashion centre or forvocational training. An interesting observationwas that the techniques used in their constructionwere based on shipbuilding.

An example of the use to which old chimneyscould be put was presented by Franck Larere,representing Le Non Lieu, a project for putting

industrial heritage at the service of the arts. Theycould be used for spectacular lighting effects or,in a 2013 promotion, as ‘belfrys of labour’ tocelebrate the world of work throughout themonth of May in all the towns around Lille.

E-FAITH’s Secretary, Adriaan Linters, presentedus with the lessons to be learned from thecampaign to save the Charlesville, otherwiseknown as the Georg Buchner in Rostock, Germany.This was the last surviving mixed cargo andpassenger ship of the renowned CompagnieMaritime Belge, which plied between Antwerp andthe Belgian Congo. Destined for the scrap yardafter use as a hotel in Germany, a plea to theGerman authorities and a Flemish ministerprevented its break-up but, despite loud protests,legal protection it had been granted as a historicmonument was lifted. En route from Rostock to thescrap yard in Lithuania, it sunk off the Polish coast.

The 1882 steam pumping station ‘HertogReijnout’ in the Netherlands, well known fromvisits by the AIA and others, was the subject of apaper by Jan Van de Veen, one of its long-timevolunteers. Unusually for a steam station, the 5mplus wheel has wooden cogs. Needing new teeth,these were cut in situ using a computer-designedcutter – a successful operation over six weeks,leaving a perfectly-running engine fit for another50 years.

There followed a session in which variousassociations outlined their work and objectives.These included the Federation of French Mills,who would like to see national mills days developinto ‘The European May of Mills’; it seeks toadvance this idea in 2014/15.

The Bois du Cazier, a mining site in SouthBelgium where 262 miners from twelve differentcountries, most of them Italian, lost their lives in1956, has the ambition to develop as a sitepromoting safety at work and the welfare ofmigrants.

Restor Hydro is involved in the restoration ofsmall-scale hydro-electric sites. With 2.5 millioneuros at its disposal, it is identifying sites inEurope capable of restoration.

There were reports from three workinggroups. The factory chimney group met in Roubaixin May, when partners from France, Belgium andSpain discussed uses for old chimneys.

Dr Jur Kingma reported that the aim of theworking group on European cranes was toexchange information on historic cranes andgood examples of their conservation, to presentin 2015 a map of all the historic cranes in Europe,possibly in interactive digital form, to produce ashort history of their development, and to arrangesome exhibitions in museums in 2015.

The aim of Adriaan Linter’s working group ondangerous industrial heritage sites is to exchangeinformation on their conservation and opening tothe public, to discuss environmental and safetyissues, to compare relevant legislation andpractice in different European countries and toorganise an international conference in 2015 onthe conservation of such sites.

The conference was followed by a receptiongiven by the City of La Chaux-de-Fonds and a visitto the watch-making museum. On Sunday morningwe enjoyed a guided walk around the Suchardfactory area in Serrieres and a trip on a heritagetrain from Serrieres to La Pesta, where we visitedthe asphalt mine worked from 1712 to 1986.

Creative EuropeOn 19 October 2013 the European Parliamentagreed upon the new Creative EuropeProgramme, which will replace the CultureProgramme (2000-2013).

With a budget of €1.46 billion over the nextseven years the new programme will provide aboost for the cultural and creative sectors,including heritage.

E-Faith now has a page where one can post asearch for partnerships, for projects to start in orbeing carried out in 2015 European Industrialand Technical Heritage Year.

The last factory chimney of the town, La Chaux-de-Fonds,Tour Espacité. photo Adriaan Linters

At La Chaux-de-Fonds, Musée International de l'Horlogeriephoto Adriaan Linters

Visit to the Musée International de l'Horlogerie, guided by Jean-Michel Piguet photo Adriaan Linters


For the best part of a mile along the north side ofthe railway line passing Hatfield Colliery, nearThorne in South Yorkshire, there is an extensivelow spoil tip from deep mining and coal trainscould often be seen loading coal alongside thistip. At the same time mining spoil was beingadded to the tip and unfortunately in February alandslip occurred and the railway line past theColliery from Doncaster to Goole, Scunthorpe,Immingham, Grimsby and Cleethorpes wasblocked for five months. It is not entirely clearwhat caused the 200 yard slip; soil mechanics canbe difficult. About 1.4 million tons of spoil movedand the rail track was pushed up to five metresvertically and 15 metres horizontally.

There is naturally some concern locallyregarding the safety of the tip. On Friday21October 1966 at Aberfan in South Wales,following a period of rain, a heap of spoil fromMerthyr Vale Colliery moved – engulfing a school.The death toll was 116 children and 28 adults.However, the tip at Hatfield has been constantlymonitored in line with current legislation and allsafety requirements have been complied with.The land hereabouts is flat and circumstances arequite unlike South Wales.

Owing to the blockage of the railway line atHatfield trains had to be rerouted. Apart frompassenger services, Network Rail has had todivert about 140 freight trains each day, essentialtrains carrying steel, oil for aviation fuel and coalfor power stations. Most were accommodated onan alternative route via Brigg with some trainsbeing diverted through Lincoln.

When we visited the Port of Immingham in2009 as part of the AIA Conference held inLincoln it was made plain just how great thefreight traffic through this port is. The combinedPort of Grimsby and Immingham has been thelargest UKs port by tonnage. The line from

Immingham to Doncaster via Scunthorpe is a keyartery for freight services conveying about 20%of the total rail freight volume of the UK. Thereare usually forty trains a day carrying coalimported through Immingham for power stationsin the Aire and Trent Valleys. Steel to and from theTATA works at Scunthorpe accounts for ten trainsper day. Petroleum products from the Humber andLindsey refineries normally require eight trainsand there are also two trains daily forpetrochemical traffic from Immingham to Prestonand Stalybridge. There are six trains a day toRoxby Gullet landfill site carrying domestic waste.Steel from Immingham to the Outokumpu worksin Sheffield requires two trains daily and Hatfieldcolliery itself normally generates eight trains perday.

Following the closure of Daw Mill Colliery inWarwickshire (see page 17) mainly due tounderground fires, only Hatfield and two otherpits in the UK remain active as deep coal mines.

These are Kellingley Colliery in Yorkshire andThoresby Colliery in Nottinghamshire.

When we stayed in Lincoln in 2009 there wasa noticeable number of lengthy oil tank trainspassing through the town. Lincoln is noted for itslevel crossings and these could be closed to roadtraffic for quite a time. Parts of Britain still haveheavy industry, often on the eastern side of thecountry where ports trade with the Continent.

However, coal traffic is not all from the EastCoast. A large amount of coal arrives in the UK atHunterston in Ayrshire destined for powerstations in the South Yorkshire area. This coal iscarried by rail and trains loaded with more than4000 tons, nearly twice the usual maximum, havebeen operated between Carlisle and York. Heavyrail freight traffic is currently on the increase. Themaximum speed of trains is 60 mph with sometrains when empty allowed to run at 75 mph.

[Although work continues a Hatfield, freightand passenger traffic was restored in July ed]

Hatfield Colliery Tip – Landslip and its Consequences

The carriage of heavy loads such as coal, steel and petroleum products by rail is on the increase. The Port of Immingham is one of the most importantsources of this heavy traffic but long coal trains are also run from Ayrshire to power stations in Yorkshire. A serious mishap at Hatfield colliery to thenortheast of Doncaster blocked the railway line there for five months, necessitating a major rerouting of freight services that had deleterious economiceffects.

Robert Carr

Shane Gould began by discussing ‘IndustrialHeritage at Risk’ which formed the focus of EnglishHeritage’s 2011 Heritage at Risk programme. Theexercise resulted in a ‘top 10’ list of IndustrialHeritage sites at risk. Stewart Ainsworth followed,illustrating landscape and environmentalapproaches to management via research into lead-mining landscapes and erosion and climate change

threats. Examples included Grassington Moorwhere, in response to unauthorised work, rectifiedphotography and other surveys were used,interrogating the landscape to find historic andcurrent water movement, types of waste tip, andropeway sites. The project identified types oferosion and was able to determine likely hotspotsfor future water management purposes.

Mike Nevell introduced site specificapproaches. With industrial sites comprising twothirds of all sites identified in the planning processas having archaeological potential, Mike looked attypes of evaluation and how they help tounderstand sites historically and archaeologically,along with quantifying risk both to thearchaeology and to the developer. Using science to

‘Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it’

Managing the Industrial Heritage: A course run jointly by Oxford University and English Heritage discussing the management of industrial heritage was heldat Rewley House in Oxford on 6 and 7 June. The course was aimed at those involved with industrial heritage at a professional level and it sought to makeattendees consider best practice.

Steve Miles


supplement the understanding of industrial siteswas the approach presented by David Dungworth.For example, analysis of distinctive residues fromcertain processes can provide chemical datarelating to those processes, thereby assisting inunderstanding the operation of the site.

The still controversial subject of twentiethcentury industrial heritage was examined byWayne Cocroft, asking how we might value this,being under-researched and under-valued, withchallenges to survival including the scale andtemporary nature of some sites. Wayne believesthat this heritage has historical, aesthetic andcultural value, and pointed out that a lot of thetechnology we live our daily lives by can berelatively old. A telling slide showed technologyin 1960 with a Blue Streak missile on one side,next to a shot of the Evening Star, the last mainline steam loco to be built in the UK.

Ian Miller of Oxford Archaeology illustrated arecent survey of Lancashire textile mills, whichwas instigated to help local authorities makemore informed decisions in the planning processwhen dealing with such sites.

The first day concluded with OluwaseunSoyemi from the Heritage Lottery Fund looking atvarious HLF funding initiatives.

The second day opened with Jon Humblelooking at English Heritage’s role. Both statutoryand grant duties were covered before looking inmore detail at the work English Heritage hasdone in the East Midlands.

Ursilla Spence and Jason Mordan fromNottinghamshire County Council explained thework of local authorities and the treatment ofindustrial sites. Ursula discussed industrialpreservation attitudes in the county indicatinghow this heritage is under-valued. Reasonsinclude the perceptions that post-medieval andmodern sites are common, not rare, that they are

‘easy to understand’ and ‘difficult to deal with’.Hawton Gypsum Mill and Clipstone Colliery wereillustrated as challenging examples. Despite this,the Portland Path project was highlighted for itslocal community involvement. Jason discussedthe adaptive re-use of industrial heritage in thecounty, illustrating further challenges andsuccesses including conservation work atBestwood Colliery.

Ainsley Cocks from the Cornwall and WestDevon World Heritage Site spoke about themanagement of the area. This landscapedesignation of nearly 20,000 hectares is thelargest in the UK. Issues looked at includedfunding, protection, condition monitoring, andengaging audiences using interpretation,marketing and cultural events.

Then Ken Smith from the Peak DistrictNational Park Authority approached tourism andits effects upon the mining heritage of that area.Agricultural and modern mineral extractionimpacts were also highlighted. The recent LeadRakes Project identified the nature of remains andlandscape extent and identified a way forward tomanage impacts upon the mining landscape.

Finally, Ian Bapty gave a presentation onpartnership working with publically accessibleindustrial heritage sites. With many of these trust-owned and run by volunteers, common problemsinclude volunteer recruitment, a changingfunding and visitor environment, and achievingbest practice in conservation, management andpresentation standards. Ian explained his role inputting together partnerships to support thesesites. Other examples shown of partnershipworking included the East Peak InnovationPartnership’s excellent Industrial Heritageprogramme.

Discussions at the end of both days focussedon reiterating issues highlighted during the

lectures. For twentieth century sites, the feelingwas that Historic Landscape Characterisationcould be important for understanding thisheritage. The role of local authorities wasdiscussed, with the variation in quality of HistoricEnvironment Records across the country beingidentified, and it was noted that there was a needfor more engagement between communities,local authorities and heritage bodies. It was feltthat industrial heritage does benefit fromspecialist volunteer work more than otherelements of the historic environment, and itwould have been interesting for this conversationto have continued to look at strengths andweaknesses of the volunteer aspect and how itcan further the management of such sites.

In concluding, it was asked how we couldimprove the conservation of our industrial past. Itwas felt that public perception was extremelyimportant, with the media playing a part in this. Arecent English Heritage survey indicated thatyoung people are not currently engaged with thisbut that there is an appetite, and education shouldbe a high priority. During discussion the feelingwas that universities generally are not doingenough in teaching industrial heritage andarchaeology in their courses. It was acknowledgedthough that community archaeology projects areone way of getting people involved.

The title of this article is a quote fromConfuscius, and was used by one of the lecturers.It neatly sums up some attitudes still prevalent .What came across strongly during the course ishow in today’s enlightened conservation climate,industrial heritage is still undervalued, and thatthe key to survival of the historic industrialenvironment is the sustainable management ofchange and the engagement of communities withtheir industrial past.

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National MillsConference

Delegates came from all over the North to 2013’sNational Mills Conference held in Brooke’s Mill,Huddersfield on 26 November which focussed onthe need to preserve the Mill Heritage in both thephysical environment and also to record thestories of those who worked in the Mills. From aposition of almost a complete standstill two yearsago, the Mill Regeneration market is starting tomove forward.

Nigel Grizzard, Chief Executive, Our Northern Mills

The conference heard about the plans forDitherington Flax Mill, in Shrewsbury, which hasreceived the promise of £25 million in funding ina cocktail of funds including the Heritage Lottery,European Regional Development Fund and theHomes and Communities Agency.

Lisa Cowley, from the Friends of the Flaxmilland Claire Cox from Shropshire Council, spokeabout how they intend to drive the schemeforward.

Derek Morton who has just been awardedthe 2013 Heritage Alliance Heroes Award for hiswork at Portland Works Sheffield told how acommunity group came together to raise fundsand purchase the historic works and are now ontrack with its regeneration.

Yaseen Mohammed of Bradford talked aboutthe huge, seven acre, Drummond’s Mill site onLumb Lane and the challenges he faces inbringing it back to life.

Ian Armitage talked about Folly Hall Mills in

Huddersfield and how the regeneration waslinked to a project to record the worker’s stories.

Mike Robinson from Our Northern Millsdescribed how he changed from StructuralEngineer to recorder of Textile Stories through anHLF project, Threads and Tales, and Peter Steniulisof Kirklees Council gave an overview of howregeneration was progressing in Kirklees.

During the day Mark Brook took delegates ona tour of the huge Mill complex to see theregenerations in progress.

After a hectic day as the organiser I have tolook at what we can offer for next year.

We are hoping to achieve the following:1 To bring together, in early January,

delegates from the large mill complexes inthe Greater Bradford area to look atsetting up a mutual support network.

2 To organise a half day tour of theDrummonds Mill Complex in Bradford.

3 To venture North of the Border and inpartnership with Historic Scotland run anevent in the Borders where the textileindustry still flourishes and there arestrong links with West Yorkshire.

4 To continue to offer help and support tomill regenerators, be they large or small,who want to save, preserve and regeneratetheir Mill property.

If you’re interested in getting involved pleasecontact: [email protected] andwe’ll ensure we email you about our futureevents.

On our website www.ournorthernmills.org.ukare the results of our HLF project and we arehopeful of further funding!

The application process was carried out byJapanese and indus trial consultants from all overthe world, many of whom are TICCIH members,and was masterminded by a Consortium led byGovernor Ito of Kagoshima prefecture, who drewtogether funding and technical support frommany cities and prefec tures. If the application issuccessful it will be the beginning of a processinitiated by an ICOMOS report to UNESCO, largelywritten by Professor Henry Cleere (Honorary LifeMember of TICCIH) who in his GAP reportrecommended that there were far too fewindustrial sites on the World Heritage list and fartoo few sites from Asia. This will certainly start toredress the balance.

During the Tokugawa period, 1600-1867,Japan became a totally closed country as they

feared the effect of Christianity on their societyand authority. Christians were all cruelly sup -pressed, foreigners were not allowed to land onJapanese soil and Japanese were not allowed totravel abroad, on penalty of death. Large shipswere not allowed to be constructed andinternational trade was limited to contacts withthe Chinese and Koreans, under strictsupervision, and a small contingent of Dutch whowere confined to the island of Dejima inNagasaki. This was a peaceful period in Japan,although governed by strict rules and a very stricthierarchy with the Emperor merely being apuppet living in Kyoto, whereas the Shogun whoran the country lived in Ido (modern day Tokyo).The clans in the south, Kyushu and Yamaguchi,became particularly rich and strong because of

their contacts with the Dutch and limited tradewith Okinawa, and they were horrified when asmall nation which they had scarcely heard of, the

National Mills Conference at Brooke's Mill, Huddersfield Photo: David Hunter

Japan’s Meiji industrial revolution

Shinzo Abe, the Prime Minister of Japan, personally decided in September 2013 that the nextnomination to be put forward to UNESCO for World Heritage Site status would reflect the rap idindustrialisation of Japan during the Meiji Restoration (1868- 1912). This can be seen as a first forJapan, and possibly for Asia, as the nomination includes sites which are still operational.

Stuart B Smith

Gunkanjima. Deterioration means that only a limited part ofthe island is open to visitors. Photo: Stuart B Smith


UK, defeated China during the Opium wars. Theyrealised that their isolated country had no army,poor weapons and no large ships, and in 1853 thevisit of Commodore Matthew Perry of the USNavy, with a squadron of black ships, demandingthe opening up of Japan to trade, threw them intoa frenzy of industrial development, initially bycopying furnaces and machinery from importedDutch text books. Soon, however, foreignmerchants arrived, particularly the ScotsmanThomas Glover, who settled in Nagasaki and washappy to supply guns, ships and anything elsethat people wanted, particularly to the Satsuma

and Choshu clans who eventually overthrew theTokugawa Government and restored the EmperorMeiji to power.

In Kagoshima the Satsuma clan set upJapan’s first modern steam-powered textile millin 1867, within months of the rapprochementwith the British Navy following its bombardmentof the city. Nearby stands Foreigners’ Residence,where the team of Lancashire engineers livedwhile they set up the mill. This pioneer factorycomplex, with its origins in the 1850s, embraceda blast furnace, reverberatory iron smelter,shipbuilding, iron and cannon manufacture,

textiles, glassware, food, publishing and chemicalproducts. Firebricks were produced for thesmelters, and fine pottery and glassware wasmade to help generate income to capitaliseindustrial development. Some 1,200 people wereworking at Shuseikan at its peak. Thesepioneering innovations in Kagoshima formed thebasis for other textile industry developmentselsewhere in Japan, most notably in Osaka.Shuseikan also introduced the Factory System toJapan.

Republished with thanks from the TICCIHBulletin nº. 62 (2013)

The Pioneer factory complex at Shuseikan, next to the Shimadzu summer garden, Kagoshima, 1872. A "foreigner's building"was built to house seven English technicians. © Shuseikan Museum

A site put forward for World Heritage status is the now, uninhabited island of Hashima, popularly known as Gunkanjima, with its coalmine which operated from 1887 to1974. Particularlynoted for its abandoned, early twentieth century, concrete apartment blocks which housed over 5000 workers; they provide a rare insight into the living conditions of the time.

Photo: Stuart B Smith

Another candidate for World Heritage status – theReverberatory furnace at Hagi Photo: Stuart B Smith

VISIT THE AIA WEBSITEwww.industrial-archaeology.org


John Hughes2014 will be the bicentenary of the birth of JohnHughes, engineer, ironmaster and businessmanand to mark this Ukraine is issuing acommemorative stamp.

Born in Merthyr Tydfil, where his father washead engineer at the Cyfarthfa Ironworks hejoined the Uskside Foundry in Newport,Monmouthshire, patenting a number ofinventions in armaments and armour plating. Theresultant revenues allowed him to acquire ashipyard and by the age of 36 he owned afoundry in Newport.

In the mid-1850s Hughes moved to London,becoming a director of the Millwall Iron Works,Shipbuilding and Graving Docks Company andafter its demise he became manager of theresidual Millwall Iron Works Company. During thisperiod, the various companies and successorswon worldwide acclaim for the iron cladding ofwooden warships for the British Admiralty, forwhich Hughes was given much of the credit.

In 1868, the Millwall Iron Works Companyreceived an order from the Imperial RussianGovernment for the plating of a naval fortressbeing built at Kronstadt on the Baltic Sea. In thefollowing year he acquired a piece of land in theeastern Ukraine and formed the ‘New RussiaCompany Ltd.’ to raise capital, and in the summerof 1870 aged 55 he moved to Russia. With his

wife and eight children he sailed with eight ships,taking with them not only all the equipmentnecessary to establish a metal works, but alsomuch of the skilled labour; a group of about ahundred ironworkers and miners mostly fromSouth Wales.

After a journey of 2000 miles they arrived inlittle more than a wilderness with a climate of

freezing winters and baking hot summers. Herethey built eight blast furnaces and openedcollieries, iron ore mines and brickworks. Aftertwo years work they produced their first iron.

The town they built they called Hughesovka orYuzovka. Hughes personally provided a hospital,schools, bath houses, tea rooms, a fire brigade andan Anglican church dedicated to the patron saintsSt George and St David. Many technical,engineering and managerial positions were filledby British (and especially Welsh) emigrants. Athriving expatriate community was established,living in good quality company housing.

Over the next twenty years, the worksprospered and expanded, first under John Hugheshimself and then, after his death in 1889, underthe management of four of his sons. Amazingly,John Hughes was only semi-literate, he wasunable to write and could only read capital letters.

By the end of the nineteenth century, theworks was the largest in the Russian Empire; in1913 it produced 74% of all Russian iron.

The Bolshevik revolution of 1917 brought theHughes family connection with the works to aclose. The Hughes brothers and almost all of theirforeign employees left Russia, and the workswere taken over by the Bolsheviks in 1919. Thetown of Hughesovka was renamed Stalino, in1924, and then Donetsk in 1961. The workssurvived and prospered, and Donetsk is still amajor centre of metallurgical industries.

Rust, regenerationand romanceIn 10-14 July 2013 at the World Heritage Site ofIronbridge, the birthplace of commercial ironproduction, some 155 delegates came from 34countries to attend the conference ‘ Iron and SteelLandscapes and Cultures’. Some 103 papers werepresented at the conference along with keynotespeakers Professor Patrick Martin, President ofTICCIH, Sir Neil Cossons, former Director of theUK’s National Science Museum and ProfessorDietrich Soyez, University of Cologne.

Professor Mike Robinson (Director, IIICH)Dr Matt Thompson (Senior Curator, IGMT)

The conference was jointly developed by theIronbridge International Institute for CulturalHeritage (IIICH) at the University of Birminghamand the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust (IGMT)and was supported by TICCIH. The aim of theevent was to examine the legacies of iron andsteel production and consumption in terms oflandscape and social change and, in the process,begin to set a new agenda for research inindustrial heritage in a world radically alteredthrough financial, social and political change. Theevent formed part of the IIICH’s research agendaon Industrial Heritage Futures and the location ofthe Ironbridge Gorge provided a working case-study for many of the issues discussed.

The conference itself was an active researchsite, exploring as it did the research terrainaround a very open invitation to academics and

practitioners. What was at once noticeable wasthe sheer diversity of disciplines represented atthe conference indicating not only the opennessof the field but the depth of interest in more orless every aspect of its main theme oftransformation. Once seen solely as the preserveof a specialist academic field emanating fromindustrial archaeology, industrial heritage hasfound itself at the forefront of research into thetransformation of society and understandings ofthe relationship between people and place.Notwithstanding practical issues, preservation ofthe industrial past has always faced the challengeof recognition in the face of a wider heritageagenda characterised by ‘older’ heritage and amore traditional aesthetic. So too has it faced theissues relating to the sheer size and technicalcomplexity of its management and its non-industrial use.

Numerous papers at the conferenceaddressed the issues that lie beyond protectionand stabilisation and relate to matters of utility,public access and economic sustainability. Howdo we make industrial heritage work beyond themonument or museum approach? Of course theanswer is complicated and varies with respect tocountry, culture and conditions, but a number ofcases discussed at the conference exploredpossible futures for industrial heritage in a post-industrial world. In doing so they pointed to theneed for more research into ways in which thelegacies of the industrial past can be integratedwith the structures of the present. Integral to thisis an understanding of the role, not only of thematerial cultures of industry but also of theirimmaterial impacts upon identities and social

practices of communities. It is the understandingof the deep and persistent connections existingbetween industrial artefact and process andbetween these and social life that assists inshaping both policy and practice.

The conference demonstrated through asignificant number of papers that industrialheritage has long shaped society in culture notmerely by its physical presence but also throughthe ways it is represented in artistic expressions -literature, photography, music and the like. Atpresent there still remains a gap between thescientific/technological engagement withindustrial heritage focusing on the protection andpreservation of sites and more creative, artisticengagement focusing on the promotion of itswider messages and meanings. The key point isthat these are not mutually exclusive positions.Indeed, we need to find ways of betterintegrating our intangible and rooted connectionswith the industrial past with its material legacies.

Perhaps the most enlightened, if the mostchallenging, agenda to emerge from this event isthe need to be truly international in the scope ofour research. The IIICH, the IGMT and ourpartners are committed to gaining aninternational understanding of the future ofindustrial heritage and a genuine exchange ofknowledge, not only in relation to specific sitesand monuments, but also in terms of the widersocio-cultural, economic and political contexts inwhich our relationships with the industrial pastresides.

Republished with thanks from the TICCIHBulletin nº. 62 (2013)

John Hughes


Pride of the museum is the hydraulic tensiletesting machine – the first of its kind and the lastremaining which formed the heart of Kirkaldy’sTesting and Experimenting Works whereexperiments took place on emerging industrialmaterials to determine their strength. Listed andstill in perfect working order, the machine ishoused in a beautiful and atmospheric Grade IIlisted building specially constructed in 1874 toaccommodate it.

The machine is single-acting water hydraulicpowered and has a designed load capacity of1,000,000lb - 446 tons at 6700 psi. The actuator is18 inch diameter with a 6 ft stroke. Samples up to20 ft long can be tested in tension or compression,and up to 26 ft span in bending. Crushing, shearand torsion tests are also possible.

There are numerous other historic testingmachines for various materials, many donated byImperial College.

Spread over two floors, the workshop ispreserved in its original state and still featuresthe office, and even the chair, where DavidKirkaldy dreamed up his world-changinginventions. It evokes a feeling similar to that ofthe Sir John Soane Museum in Lincoln’s InnFields: that its founder has not left, he has juststepped out.

For the past 30 years the Kirkaldy TestingMuseum has been run by a small group ofdedicated volunteers who have worked tirelesslyto keep it open and operable. Current resourcesmake it possible to open once a month to thepublic or through special appointment for groupvisits.

Sited in the historic Bankside district inLondon the Museum is now under threat fromdevelopers who want to turn it into a themedrestaurant. Help is urgently needed to save it.

If you can provide advice or expertise to helpus save this for future generations, please contactHugh MacGillivray, Kirkaldy Testing Museum [email protected] or Una Devinee. [email protected].

The Kirkaldy Testing Museum, 99 SouthwarkStreet, London SE1 0JF, is open on the first Sundayof every month. Please check website for openingtimes. An online tour is available here:http://www.testingmuseum.org.uk/tour.html. Themuseum is a registered charity (No. 297557) andreceives no funding other than from visitors. Ifyou would like to donate or volunteer, pleasevisit: www.testingmuseum.org.uk

Kirkaldy Testing Museum, Riehle machine. This tension-compression machine was made in Philadelphia by the Riehle Bros inabout 1890. It has a very compact compound-lever force measurement system and a force-displacement recording drum.

Photo: Hugh McGillivray

Main bed of Kirkaldy’s 1874 machine Photo: Hugh McGillivray

The Kirkaldy Testing Museum

A perfectly preserved Victorian workshop that changed the world, the Kirkaldy Testing Museum is one of the great, unsung museums of internationalimportance operating in London today, offering a unique insight into Britain’s industrial and scientific past.

TICCIH Lille 2015 Industrial Heritage in the Twenty-First Century, 5-14 September 2015. Save this date!

The next XVIth TICCIH congress will be in northern France from 5 - 14 September 2015. This Congress is being organised by the French association CILACand the Université Lille Nord de France (Artois), and will take place in Lille under the High Pa tronage of Mrs Aurélie Filippetti, the French Minister ofCulture and Communication.

It will open on the evening of 6 September and finish on 11 September, and mainly take place in the Lille Palais des Congrès. Pre-congress tours willbe proposed for the 5 and 6 September and Post-congress tours on the 12 to 14 September


Elgin Marblesreturned to Turkeyor a WeighingMachine goes home

The Glamorganshire Canal boat weighingmachine which Cardiff Corporation and theNational Museum of Wales would not preserve insitu in the late 1940s and which since 1963 hadbeen on display at the Waterways Museum,Stoke Bruerne is now expertly restored anderected in working order at the WaterfrontMuseum, Swansea. No longer is there a specialreason for visiting Northamptonshire.

Stephen Rowson

As it ceased to see itself as a national canalmuseum, Stoke Bruerne has been trying to get ridof the machine since at least 2000. Interpretationpanels were removed and the last (1990)information leaflet has been unavailable for years.Fortunately, in order to enable painless de-listing ofthe structure at Northamptonshire, the NationalMuseum of Wales has stepped in to fund its captureand ‘return to Wales’ albeit to Swansea and notCardiff. And a great job they have made of it.

The project has been undertaken by trustyPenybryn Engineering and in July 2013 the machinewas dismantled and removed to Penallta forrefurbishment.

The machine is the sole remaining of fourknown to have been installed on British canalswhere over-measure of coal cargoes by theirfreighters was endemic. These were theMonmouthshire Canal (1816), the Somerset CoalCanal (1831), the Glamorganshire Canal (1834)and the Thames & Severn Canal (1845). All werebased on John Wyatt’s lever principle of 1744, thefirst at Newport having been designed by WilliamWhitmore of Birmingham who had beenadvertising the machine since 1800 but of which noexample before 1816 has been located. The presentmachine was manufactured by Brown Lenox ofYnysangharad Works who used drawings of theNewport machine but replaced Whitmore’s uglycast iron girders and supporting braces with anelegant design of six slim Doric columns supportingattractive entablature and cross members.

Brown Lenox’s machine was erected over aspecially built boat dock. The boat to be weighedwas floated into the dock, the gate closed and thewater let out through a side sluice. The boat cameto rest in a suspended cradle and was then weighed

by applying a series of weights on a pan hangingfrom the lever. The lever system gave a mechanicaladvantage of 112 to 1 which meant that one poundin the pan weighed one hundred weight. AtSwansea, instead of having to dig a dock with theattendant water management difficulties, Penybrynhave erected the machine on six specially built brickpiers. A fabricated steel replica canal boat will beplaced in the cradle and a ramp will allow parties ofschool children to climb to the boat’s level, to enter

the ‘boat’ and be weighed en masse (by theirschool teacher?).

The machine was installed at Swansea duringDecember 2013 and it is planned for the boat to bein place in spring 2014. Is it too much to hope thatthis is but the first of many full scale re-erections atSwansea of the machines that have beenlanguishing in store at Nantgarw since the closureof the erstwhile WIMM?

The weighing machine in Dec 2013 before fitting the rods by which the cradle hangs

Nigel Brake of Penybryn Engineering positioning the weigh pan on the lever arm

A century ofstainless steelIn 1913 the first practical stainless steel wasinvented by Harry Brearley in Sheffield, at theBrown-Firth research laboratory. There had beenmany attempts over the best part of a hundredyears to produce a stainless steel and it was onlywhen quite advanced scientific methods of analysis

had been developed that a true ‘rustless steel’ wasachieved. The problem had been in reducing thecarbon content which had proved really difficult.This first stainless steel was martensitic and hadapplications for cutlery, surgical instruments,scissors, springs, valves, shafts, ball bearings,machine components - especially turbine blades,and equipment for the petrochemical industry.

Harry Brearley, a Sheffield man, using an electricarc-furnace cast his first stainless steel on 20 August

1913. Other types of stainless steel have beendeveloped since and these have wide applications.Nowadays stainless steels are used not just forsmaller fairly precise items as above, but also in civilengineering for structural use. Stainless steel doesnot need painting and is quite sustainable; atpresent about seventy percent is recycled.

Robert Carr


AIA NEWS

The Association – let us haveyour thoughts and ideas!I expressed concern at the 2012 AGM about ourdeclining membership numbers. Fortunatelynumbers have stabilised in the last two years ataround 520, but that is about 100 less than wehave had historically. The problem is not inrecruiting, we attract some 30 new members eachyear; our failure is in keeping members,particularly those who have belonged for less thanfour years. Natural causes takes care of a handfulof members each year, cost obviously plays a parttoo, especially since 2008, but the remainder leavefor reasons not altogether clear, although we doinquire of those who leave as to why.

At the Council Meeting in November it wasdecided to devote resources to further developingthe website. However, we recognise that theNewsletter is the prime source of contact withmembers, and through affiliated societies to non-members, and Chris Barney, the editor, is trying outnew ideas. We would like to hear from you – yourideas for making our Association more attractive toexisting members and to new recruits.

Any ideas and suggestions regarding IANews should be addressed to Chris [email protected]; other suggestionsas to the Association’s activities, publications, andother issues that you feel it ought to beaddressing, should be sent to me [email protected].

All ideas will be acknowledged, thoughpossibly not at length, and will be part of ourdiscussions at future Council meetings andthrough IA News I will keep you informed. Yourhelp will be appreciated.

Bruce Hedge, Membership Development.

Welcome to new membersMr Gary White Boston, LincsDennis S Furbush New York, USASimon Blackley HuntingdonMr Terry Hunns LincolnClive Thomas Merthyr TydfilDr Hugh & Mrs Jenny Field CambridgeNigel Grizzard Our Northern Mills, LeedsAllen Wheeler BracknellAlan Brant MacclesfieldI P Walker Croydon

Industrial Archaeology ReviewIssue 36.1is in hand and will comprise a themedissue on the Industrial Archaeology of the 20thcentury. The papers have been selected from thework presented at the 2012 Essex Conference.

Issue 35.2 was my last issue, and I wouldonce again like to express my regret thatcircumstances have prevented me fromcontinuing the Joint Editorship. Ian West will bejoining Mike Nevell as Joint Editor in my place,and I wish their partnership every success.

Helen Gomersall for the Joint Editors IAR

English Heritage reviewA sub-group of EH’s Industrial Archaeology Panelconsisting of Marilyn Palmer, Gill Chitty, MikeBone and Tony Crosby are working on reviewingthe 2008-13 Strategic Vision for the EffectiveStewardship of Industrial Heritage.

They will be taking into account the Heritage atRisk project and also comments from MilesOglethorpe’s Rolt lecture, especially aspects onvaluing industrial heritage. The funding environmenthas changed considerably in the meantime, thoughmuch has been achieved in the outcomes in each ofthe 2008 priority areas and these can be built on.The Industrial Archaeology Handbook has beenpublished and the 2011 Heritage at Risk programmewas an important element which resulted in the 3-year funded IHSO project, whose work needs tocontinue beyond its deadline.

CorrectionOn page 3 of the last edition, No 167, for someinexplicable reason it states that the FalconHildred archive had been acquired by Cafodwhich is the Catholic Agency for OverseasDevelopment, a worthy body but not oneparticularly interested in industrial archaeology. Ithas actually been acquired by the RoyalCommission on the Ancient and HistoricalMonuments of Wales. (RCAHMW) with HeritageLottery Fundng in partnership with the IronbridgeGorge Museum Trust (IGMT)

A door full of holesIn Stapleton Hall Road in North London at theback of a public house, there is a puzzling smalldoor full of holes. The holes are apparentlydeliberately drilled – perhaps to facilitateventilation.

Have readers seen anything like this before?Drilling the holes individually by hand would havebeen prohibitively laborious – but surely this isnot worm action, Teredo Navalis for instance? Theconcentration of small holes in the door’s bottomleft hand corner round a knot is reminiscent ofinfestation but elsewhere the holes look tooregular for that. Would one drill through a knot inthe wood though? Perhaps it had been intendedto drill the knot out. Tropical infestation would bemore likely in hardwood, which this is not.

After World War II materials were in veryshort supply and this might just be an ingeniousexample of adaptive reuse. One still sees manyinstances of this. Timber was especially scarceafter the war; older readers may remember therunning joke ‘you can’t get the wood you know’.

One suggestion is that this wood – it lookslike deal – was at one time the backing for atarget used in shooting? Say wartime rifle ormore likely machine gun practice? However, thespacing is really too regular for this to be targetpractice.

It appears that the holes were drilled, if theywere drilled, from the back. You can see where

the drills came out and tore the wood. Three sizesof drill bit were used, each just over ¼”, 3/8” and½” in diameter. A smaller number of larger holesmight have been a better way of promotingventilation but larger drills were probablyunavailable. This small door, at about head heightwhen standing on the pavement, isapproximately 3’ 3” high.

It is difficult to believe that this was all drilledby hand just to make a ventilated door, butperhaps old wood was being reused at a time ofscarcity. The timber might have been in use on saya vertical drill stand as a support or backing forworkpieces, perhaps sheet metal, being drilledthrough. Some of this work might have beendone with the aid of a jig giving a relativelyregular spacing for the holes. This holey door ispossibly the work of a young apprentice makinguse of scrap wood and perhaps adding a fewextra holes manually to make a tidier job?

Now, why expose the side with rough, tornholes? Wouldn’t the other side with neater holesbe better for public view? But perhaps that sidemight be soiled, say oil stained. Or it might havefar more holes if the wood had been used as abacking for drilling – many holes having notpenetrated right through the wood. The other sidecould be a real mess, something you woulddefinitely want hidden. If so, wouldn’t you drillthe tidying up holes from the front? Are any holesnot torn and probably drilled the other way, that

is from the outside inwards? A few might havebeen, but almost all the holes especially those oflarger diameter show signs of tearing.

The door is un-painted; it was probablypainted once – perhaps white. It would takeabout 70 years or so for all the paint to weatheraway if lead paint had been used which gives anindication of age. Of course an inferior paintingjob would all come off much quicker.

Standing back you would see that there is a

LETTERS

A door full of holes Photo: Robert Carr


LETTERS

steel door beneath the door with holes. This isalmost certainly where the beer for the pub isdelivered. At the front of the public house there isno trapdoor or hatch in the pavement for delivery.The premises were originally a shop, convertedfor pub use later.

The holes in the door are, or probably were,to cool ventilation or refrigeration machineryused to keep the beer cool. Ice cold keg beer ispretty standard nowadays. Two extra heatexchange units have been added over the door.

This door might be an almost unique artefact,or someone may recognise a relatively familiarobject. The above suggestions are probably full ofholes. Has anyone seen a door like this before?

Robert Carr

An unusual swing bridgeThe Somerset Industrial Archaeological Society isattempting to assess the significance of an ironfootbridge in Langport of unusual constructionwhich spans a roadway between the A378 andthe entrance to the former Railway Hotel. Itcomprises two sections which swing and closetogether and the operating mechanism consistsof a manual winch with primitive gearing. There isno discernable foundry mark. The photographsshow the bridge in the open and closed positions.

Historically, the roadway over which itcrosses was the original turnpike road leadinginto the town. The Bristol & Exeter RailwayCompany’s civil engineering works for its linefrom Taunton to Yeovil resulted in a roadrealignment in the early 1850s. At that time oneof the buildings along the former main road wasa thatched public house frequented by bargehandlers employed on the navigable river Parrettnearby. When the pub was destroyed by firec.1906 a decision was made to replace it by athree storey building with its main entrance atfirst floor level. The intention was to have a fixedbridge but the lack of clearance for traffic on theold road ruled out this solution. Despite the

hotel’s name, the lattice work design of thebridge parapets and the location close to thestation, there is no evidence as yet for a directassociation between the site and the (GWR)railway company.

Both the bridge and the building suffered achequered history during the second half of thetwentieth century. The hotel closed in 1964 andthe property remained empty for fourteen yearsduring which time the bridge, though in the openposition, received impact damage from a lorry.New owners, in 1978, restored the bridge toworking order but in 1984 the district council’splanning committee decided that the hotel andits restaurant were not viable, reasoning that theaccess on to the main road across the bridge wasconsidered too dangerous. In 1986 the RailwayHotel was sold to its present owner. The bridge isregistered with the county authority as beingprivate although supported by the retaining wall

of the A378.As the swing bridge is over 100 years old and

not listed, SIAS contacted a national authority onmoveable bridges. He had not encounteredsimilar examples but suggested that shouldothers exist then they are likely to be foundwithin industrial works or inside warehouses. TheSociety would like to appeal to IA News readersfor any relevant information on this type offootbridge. SIAS officers can be contacted viaemail addresses on the website www.sias.me.uk

Brian Murless, SIAS Archivist

Water Condensers in ChileGood morning. I am writing to you to making thefollowing enquiry.

The IANS in Santiago (Institute of Nauticaland Underwater Archaeology) is a Chilean non-profit scientific foundation for the study,preservation, conservation and diffusion of theunderwater and marine heritage in Chile andLatin America. www.facebook.com/ians.chile

As part of our current archaeological project‘Historical Heritage in Caleta Robles (Mejillones, IIRegion of Atacama). Technical assessment for thesite protection’, we have undertaken a fullinvestigation of this little cove in the western bay ofMejillones del Sur, region of Antofagasta, currentlyin Chile, but in Bolivia before 1879. In this littlecove, between 1860 and 1880, there was asettlement for the exploitation of red guano, one ofthe most important resources for European andAmerican agriculture in the late nineteenth century,and whose remains lie on the eastern slopes of thepeninsula, facing the bay. This exploitation, is a siteof great historical and archaeological importancehere in Chile, remains of which we will try to legallyprotect within our current project, funded by theChilean Council for Culture.

We have just returned from the site after twomonths surveying the pattern of the settlementand identifying its different functional areas.

As Mejillones is on the coastal desert ofLangport Railway Hotel, swing bridge closed 1984

Langport Railway Hotel, swing bridge open 1976


LETTERS

Atacama, the very common issue for all peopleliving there since Holocene times was watersupply. As you may know, in the second half of thenineteenth century, the Atacama province wasthe mining heart of the central Andes, sharedbetween Peru-Bolivia and Chile.

Historical sources suggest water wasprovided by condensers or desalination plants. InMejillones, our sources state there were watermachines, or water condensers, but withoutidentifying them geographically.

Now, among the various archaeologicalstructures we were able to evidence in situ, thereare some clues that may indicate there was someactivity related to some condensation system, asthere are little brick-built cisterns internally

cemented -so we think it might be related tosome liquid collection activity – together withmany fire bricks (British COWEN fire bricks) andhuge amounts of coal and scorias, which makesus think the structure was bound with somecondensing activity. All of this is still covered witha large quantity of sand, which initially preventedus from seeing clearly what happens there andconfirming our hypothesis.

We have been searching some archaeologicaland historical background for this type ofstructure, but unfortunately, it seems there is verylittle, at least in our available specialized literaturein Chile. We have not been able to find any similararchaeological find either in Chile or elsewhere.

As industrial archaeology investigationrelating to the1860-1870 period is very scarcehere, we would need to investigate moreinformation elsewhere.

Here is my enquiry. Would anybody in the AIAbe so kind as to advise us and give us some cluesfor our understanding about water condenserengineering?

I would be pleased to give more details aboutour investigations if necessary,

Hoping I could put your attention on ourpoint, and hoping we can make any contact too,

Christophe Pollet – [email protected] de Arqueología Náutica y Subacuática

NEWS

Saracen Foundry litho platesA series of designs for elaborate Victorianironworks preserved on 60 stone slabs, whichwere unearthed by a man when he dug up hisgarden patio went to auction and have beenbought on behalf of the Scottish IronworkFoundation.

Mr Reilly of Garrowhill Glasgow was liftingold paving slabs and was amazed to find themcovered in pictures. They were later revealed to beoriginal litho plates used to make catalogueprints for Walter Macfarlane & Co, Glasgow,proprietors of the Saracen Foundry, a firm thatmade architectural ironwork and exportedaround the world.

Just after the auction, David Mitchell, one ofthe group leading the appeal and purchase, said‘First up – they are just incredible – they are invarying condition and total around 60 in number.A few look as if they were made yesterday whichis just amazing given they were face down in theearth until recently. We raised £9000 in pledgesand the auction costs were just over £2432. Overthe coming weeks we will be establishing thecosts associated with conserving, storing anddisplaying the collection. We propose to build afund specifically for this project to enable us toshare them as widely as possible. What we areable to do with the collection really depends onthe funding we can generate and, whilst securingthe collection for the nation was our primemotive, it also feels very much the start of ajourney. We have some interesting ideas ofprojects we can build around the objects – usingthem as tangible symbols of a once world leadingScottish industry and a firm which might beconsidered to be the best in the world.’

The Scottish Ironwork Foundation has existedsince 2002 to promote historic architecturalironwork made or found in Scotland. It is about tostart the process of becoming a registered charityin Scotland. It has six Trustees from a variety ofbackgrounds within the heritage, professionaland craft sector. They plan to get some expertadvice on the objects as printing plates and alsoto ensure they maintain or improve theircondition.

Industrial heritage in Yorkshirebenefits from recent HLFlandscape grantsThe North York Moors National Park Authority hasachieved a successful stage 1 pass for £3m fromthe Heritage Lottery Fund Landscape PartnershipScheme for a project entitled ‘This exploitedLand’. With partnership and match funding thiswill potentially produce a total budget of around£5m.

The project covers an area of about 200 sqkm in the National Park which runs fromGoathland, through Grosmont and up the EskValley as far as Battersby and then along the lineof the former Rosedale railway into Rosedaleitself.

The project aims to conserve, interpret andimprove access to the extensive remains of theironstone mining and iron industry in this areaalong with the remains of other extractiveindustries. In the late nineteenth century theCleveland area was producing 40% of the UKoutput of iron ore at a time when the UK wasamongst the world’s largest iron and steel

producers. This once extensive industry is largelyforgotten today in what most visitors perceive tobe an area of beautiful and unspoilt countryside.There are also many environmental enhancementaspects included in the project.

The Authority and its community partnerswere one of three successful Yorkshire bids forLandscape funding. The HLF also awarded grantsto the rare, internationally important wetland atHumberhead Levels in North Lincolnshire andEast and South Yorkshire (£1.9m), and to theIngleborough Dales (£2.1m) for a limestonelandscape in the Craven district of the YorkshireDales National Park.

The AIA has been involved in the schemethrough our chairman, Mark Sissons, who sits onthe Park Authority’s executive steering group forthe project.

26 Signal boxes listedTwenty six of England’s rarest and best preservedrailway signal boxes have been grade II listed.Some of the boxes date from the late Victorianera.

Saracen Foundry Litho plates ready for inspection


NEWS

In the 1940s, there were as many as 10,000signal boxes, but today fewer than 500 are in useby Network Rail, which has joined EnglishHeritage in seeking out the best examples ofhistoric boxes.

John Minnis, senior investigator at EnglishHeritage, said: ‘These are very special buildings, atone time a familiar sight on our railway system.Today’s listings will ensure that many of thesehighly distinctive designs, which were full ofcharacter, are protected for years to come,providing a window into how railways wereoperated in the past.’

Network Rail is decommissioning manymechanical signal boxes to consolidate signallinginto 12 regional centres as part of a 30 year planto modernise the system. There will be a markedacceleration in the number of signal boxesdecommissioned each year.

English Heritage suggested that some of thelisted buildings could be ‘rejuvenated’ as cafes ormuseums, such as the 1923 signal box in Totnes,Devon.

Hebden Bridge signal box, which was built in1891, will be preserved as it has a ‘time warpquality’ and has retained its original 1914signage.

Signal platforms were first introduced in the1840s, but British engineer John Saxby firstcreated a building for housing the levers in 1857.

Stow Maries Aerodrome securesgrantStow Maries was a popular visit for the AIA Essexconference in 2012 and we heard then that it wasunder threat so it is good news that the site hasbeen secured by a £1.5m grant from the NationalHeritage Memorial Fund (NHMF). Additionalsupport was obtained from Essex County Council,Maldon District Council and English Heritage.

Stow Maries is a unique survival. Of the 250aerodromes built during the First World War, justten still exist of which Stow Maries is the only oneto have remained almost untouched since thewar ended in 1918. There are over 24 originalGrade II* Royal Flying Corps operation buildingsremaining including the original officers’ mess,other ranks’ mess, pilots’ ready room,blacksmith’s, ambulance station and morgue,motor transport sheds and the aircraft workshopand radio room.

Dame Jenny Abramsky, Chair of NHMF, said:‘Stow Maries gives us fresh insight into thepivotal new role that aviation played in the FirstWorld War. The National Heritage Memorial Fundwas set up as a memorial to those that gave theirlives for this country and so with the Centenarystarting next year, our Trustees felt Stow Marieshad to be secured now for future generations.’

Stow Maries was built in 1916 as a directresponse to increased attacks by GermanZeppelin airships and later Gotha fixed wingbombers on British mainland. An integral part ofthe UK’s Home Front defence, it was home to thenewly formed 37 Squadron, Royal Flying Corpsled by 19 year old Captain Ridley.

The purchase of the site, which was underthreat of redevelopment, not only secures thelong-term future of the aerodrome as it currentlyexists, but also paves the way towards the phasedrestoration of Stow Maries back to its formerstate with permanent hangars and original FirstWorld War aircraft on display. An essential part ofthe project will be an apprenticeship scheme tokeep the heritage aviation skills alive.

Securing skills for the future Heritage Counts is an annual survey on the stateof the historic environment. It collects data andinformation on funding, participation and thenumber and type of listed buildings. It alsosummarises the key policy developments in eachyear.

Alongside Heritage Counts, England’s leadingheritage organisations announced their intentionto develop a more strategic approach to trainingdelivery. By offering more targeted training forthe heritage sector they hope to reduce some ofthe most common skills gaps. They will worktowards providing training that allows for non-traditional entry routes, for example, peoplewithout academic qualifications, and has strongerlinks between vocational and academic training.

Steps to deal with the skills gaps highlightedby Heritage Counts are already underway. EnglishHeritage announced Heritage Practice, a newprogramme from January 2014 bringing together22 courses offering 400 specialist training placeswith Oxford University Department for continuingeducation. English Heritage will also make over300 new training places available free to LocalAuthority staff as part of its Historic EnvironmentLocal Management (HELM) programme of shortcourses. More information on English Heritagetraining can be found on their website. HeritageLottery Fund’s Skills for the Future programmealso offers high quality work based training invital skills to look after our heritage, and wasexpanded in 2013 to include business skills.

East Midlands newsThe 86th East Midlands Industrial ArchaeologyConference was held near Newark on 26 October.The main subject was the East Midlands Oilindustry. The East Midlands oil field is little knownin most of the rest of the country. Cliff Leadescribed the commercial beginnings of this oilfield which took place with an oil strike atHardstoft, near Tibshelf in North East Derbyshirewhere oil was found by S Pearson and Sons in1919. Production began in the same year fromwhat must be the UK’s first deep oil well.Production ceased in 1945. Kevin Tophamdecribed the expansion of oil production in theEakring area with particular emphasis on thework done by American drilling teams in thesecond world war who dramatically expandedproduction using North American rigs andtechniques which proved to be far faster than theUK equivalent. Les Reid described, from personalexperience the once substantial oil traffic inbarges on the River Trent. The principal flow was

from from Salt End in Hull to Colwick nearNottingham. The up to date picture of theindustry was given by Julie Barlow, the ManagingDirector of IGas, the leading UK onshorehydrocarbon producer who operate 30 fields with117 producing wells in the UK. Much of this is inthe East Midlands with fields near Welton inLincolnshire and Gainsborough and Eakring inNottinghamshire. Those attending visited the OilMuseum in Dukes wood near Eakring whereseveral disused ‘nodding donkey’ pumps survive.

In Northamptonshire the former tram-shed/bus depot in St James, Northampton hasbeen vacated by First Bus and is due to be takenover by Church’s Shoes who plan to use thebuilding, in addition to their premises next door,to expand their production of high class weltedfootwear.

The name of Phipps was associated withbrewing in Northamptonshire for over 150 yearsuntil the company was absorbed by Watney Mannin the 1960s. In 2004 the name was resurrectedby brothers Quentin & Alaric Neville who are nowplanning to convert the former Albion SteamBrewery buildings in Kingswell StreetNorthampton to once again brew Phipps beer.Originally built for Ratliffe & Jeffery in 1883, thebrewery was taken over by Phipps in 1899 butclosed in about 1903.

The Grade II former Midland Railway loco-shed built in 1873 adjacent to the Northamptonto Bedford line has been languishing for severalyears in an area of wilderness behind the AvonCosmetics complex near the River Nene inNorthampton. The building will become part ofthe University of Northampton’s new campus andit is planned to convert the fire-damaged buildinginto a gymnasium.

The Leicestershire Industrial History Societysucceeded in opening the Grade II GlenfieldTunnel for public access as one of the HeritageOpen Day attractions. This is one of the world’sfirst long steam railway tunnels. Built by theStephensons in 1830-32 and actually owned bythe City Council. The 1,796 yard brick built tunnelhas been infilled at the Leicester City end, thusonly giving access at Glenfield, behind 3 lockedgates! For four days parties were escorted alongthe first 100 metres of the tunnel, not open to thepublic since the 1960s . We had 140 visitors anda waiting list of 80.

At the West Bridge site in the City followingthe fire which all but destroyed the early FriarsMill on the banks of the River Soar often noted asDonisthorpes, with its golden ibex on the cupolaroof, it is pleasing to report that plans have justbeen submitted for a complete rebuild with allthe original features retained, as a project by theCity Council. This sets a superb example to otherdevelopers for the preservation and conservationof heritage buildings in the city.

Many local societies are continuing to fightplans to shut down the Snibston Discovery Parkand Museum to help balance the County andDistrict Council budgets.

In Lincolnshire survey work continues onwater supply. The surviving remains of the system


for pumping and supplying water to Gunby Hall,have recently been surveyed for the NationalTrust. There is still further documentary researchto be done before publication.

In Derbyshire the Lottery funded communityarchaeology project to research and interpret theremains of the Butterley Gangroad has completedthe investigation of the cut and cover tunnel onthe route at Fritchley. This involved excavatingaway spoil that had buried the northern entranceto the tunnel and commissioning WessexArchaeology to make a 3D laser survey of theinterior. The tunnel was found to be intact and inexcellent condition, and the survey confirms thatthe northern end of the tunnel dates from theconstruction of the line in 1793, whilst thesouthern end was rebuilt on a slightly differentalignment when the original horse drawnplateway was replaced with a conventionallocomotive worked narrow gauge railway about1850. Volunteers working for the project areundertaking a survey of the route, documentaryresearch at the Derbyshire Record Office and theNational Archives, and oral history recording fromlocal people who remember the line in its finaldays of operation in the 1930s.

The 87th East Midlands IndustrialArchaeology Conference will be held inChesterfield, the Centre of Industrial England. onSaturday 10 May 10.

Mark Sissons

King Edward MineFurther to my notes on King Edward Mine in thelast issue of IA News, I can report that CornwallCouncil has been awarded £1.2 million from theEuropean Regional Development Fund for theconversion of the Count House and Carpenter’sblocks at the mine. Match funding will bring thatfigure up to £1.8 million.

In addition, the Heritage Lottery Fund hasmade a £55,100 development grant to progressplans for an £800,000 submission to renovate theBoiler House as museum space and create a caféfor the Great Flat Lode trail in the derelict AssayOffice.

Graham Thorne

Bermondsey bridge restoredOn 11 October Sir William McAlpine, Chairman ofthe Railway Heritage Trust, handed a cheque for£150,000 to London Borough of SouthwarkCouncillors Fiona Colley and Barrie Hargrove tomark completion of the restoration of the AbbeyStreet underbridge in Bermondsey.

Designed by Colonel George ThomasLandmann and completed in 1836 the bridgecarried the London & Greenwich Railway,London’s first passenger railway line. The original24 cast-iron doric columns have been cleanedand painted bright blue.

The completion of this project means that theRailway Heritage Trust has now sponsored workto the value of over £100 million since it startedwork in 1985.

Former AIA president now headsRCAHMWFormer President of the AIA, Hilary Malaws, hasbeen appointed Acting Secretary of the RoyalCommission on the Ancient and HistoricalMonuments of Wales. Hilary is a long-standingmember of staff with extensive experience in thelibrary, archives and information managementfields and in recent years has held the post ofDirector of Services.

Hilary succeeds AIA member, Dr PeterWakelin, who leaves after eight years to take upthe position of Director of Collections & Researchat Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales.

Sandfields pumping stationAhead slow, steady as she goes. Since theformation of the Friends of Sandfields PumpingStation, things have started to move slowly, but inthe right direction. Most importantly, people aretalking to us.

We have made an application to EnglishHeritage to amend the listing status of the engineand building to include better and fuller details ofthe unique 190 horse power Cornish beamengine. English Heritage have been in touch andconfirmed that they are now reviewing the listingstatus.

Lichfield District Council has also confirmedthat they have served an ‘informant notice’ tocomplete some roof and security repair work onthe building.

We have been told that the options appraisalor heritage assessment is now completed and isawaiting publication. We are a little concernedthat we have not seen any evidence of anycommunity consultation. Our core values are toensure the safety, conservation, security andaccessibility of Sandfields Pumping Station to awider community. We have therefore written tothe Staffordshire Historic Building Trust and

requested we meet with them, prior topublication of the heritage assessment so thatthe local community can be represented.Staffordshire Historic Building Trust has confirmedthat they will do so.

David Moore

Commemorative Panel forPontecysyllteIn September a new commemorative panel waspresented to the Canal and River Trust by theInstitution of Civil Engineers to celebrate thecontributions of the ICE’s first President, ThomasTelford, and his colleagues William Hazeldine andWilliam Jessop. The panel describes the work ofthe three men and their contributions to theiconic structure.

NEWS

Plaque to note the origin of the Abbey Street Bridge, Bermondsey

Hilary Malaws


NEWS

Medway Queen back toGillinghamThe Medway Queen arrived at Gillingham onNovember 19 after being towed from Bristol bythe tug Christine over four days. The totally rebuiltvessel was greeted with enthusiasm whichquickly turned to dismay when it was learned thatfunding shortage meant that 12 of the 14 staffinvolved in the fitting out would have to be laidoff. However, on 18 December the MedwayQueen Preservation Society announced it wasable to retain two of its instructors and a total offour apprentices and one trainee followingMedway Council and the GMB Union offering tosponsor an apprentice.

Training boatbuildersPortsmouth Naval Base Property Trust hasreceived a grant of £3.75m from the HeritageLottery Fund for its Boatbuilding & Heritage SkillsTraining Centre project. The Centre will open itsdoors to the public and begin training in April2015.

Boathouse 4, constructed during the massive1930s rearmament period, will be restored andopened to the public as the Boatbuilding &Heritage Skills Training Centre. The Boathouse willbecome a Centre of Excellence for boatbuildingtraining, with IBTC Portsmouth and HighburyCollege delivering practical, intensive courses intraditional boatbuilding and related skills.

Visitors will be able to watch traditionalboatbuilding in action as well as visitingexhibitions on the building of small boats in theBritish Navy, including the display of several smallcraft from the Trust’s own collection. The Centre,based in the boathouse used during World War IIto construct the secret three man midget X-Craftsubmarins, will be the perfect setting for visitorsto discover the astonishing history of small boatsin the Navy, from Captain Bligh cast off theBounty in a 23ft launch to Ernest Shackleton’slegendary voyage to South Georgia in the JamesCaird.

As well as securing the future of Boathouse4, the skills training opportunities deliveredwithin this project will help to create the nextgeneration of craftsmen to preserve iconic shipssuch as HMS Victory and HMS Warrior. Studentswill spend part of their course at the Shipwright’sSchool to be established at the historicshipbuilding village of Buckler’s Hard on theBeaulieu River, enabling them to further developthe skills required for the construction andrestoration of larger vessels.

Diving platform listedGrade II status has been awarded to a concretediving platform at Coate Water, Swindon. The10m (33ft) platform was designed in the Art Decostyle by the architect J.B.L. Thompson, andofficially opened in June 1935. It is said to be oneof only four concrete diving platforms survivingfrom the inter-war period. It has not been used,officially, since at least 1958. And the IA

connection? Apart from the concrete structure, itstands in the former Coate Reservoir which wasbuilt to supply water to the Wilts & Berks Canal.Upon the canal’s demise, Swindon Corporationpurchased the reservoir and opened it as a park in1935. The remains a popular attraction on thesouthern edge of the town.

Peter Stanier

Kings CrossThe Railway Heritage Trust has awarded a grantof £34,341 to Network Rail to help restore thelisted platform canopy that extends beyond themain station between Platforms 8 and 9.

This short canopy was an unhappy exampleof Victorian engineering, with a large cantileveron the Platform 9 side, initially supported bywrought iron tension ties, but more recently heldup by props. Network Rail agreed with EnglishHeritage that as part of its £770,000 restorationof this canopy it could move the existing columnsacross towards Platform 9 so that they wouldhold up the canopy without propping.

Unfortunately, at some stage, two of theoriginal cast-iron columns had been replacedwith steel girders, which, whilst functional, didnot replicate the appearance of the originalstructure. The Railway Heritage Trust granted£34,341 to cover the additional cost of replacingthese steel columns with new cast iron columnsand spandrels, and also to fund four additionalcast iron spandrels where they can now beinstalled in the increased space between the tworows of columns.

At the front of the station things are not sohappy. Robert Carr notes; ‘Hopes that the southfrontage of Lewis Cubitt’s fine station wouldfinally be revealed completely uncluttered (IANews 167 page 20) have unfortunately not beenrealised. New clutter has recently been added inthe shape of stone slab seats, display boards andthree massive and obtrusive stainless-steellighting poles. Building work continues behindhoardings and it now looks as if two or three fair-sized structures will remain on completion. Two ofthese are buildings housing ventilators for theunderground.

Kings Cross ‘Platform 8½’ before work started

Medway Queen arriving at Gillingham


NEWS

The two grade 1 listed main line termini,Kings Cross and St Pancras, looked set fordignified surroundings in some sort ofappropriate conservation area but this is nolonger the case. Obtrusive new stainless steelstreet furniture is, in places, more eye catchingthan the listed buildings themselves.’

Heritage DayThe Heritage Alliance’s Heritage Day on 5December was a resounding success, with changeat the top of the agenda for the 160 delegates inattendance. Proceedings started with a lively butspeculative discussion amongst Alliance memberson the proposed new model for English Heritage.The afternoon saw keynote speeches by AllianceChair, Loyd Grossman and HLF Chair, Dame JennyAbramsky, followed by the announcement of theHeritage Heroes Awards 2013.

In his address, Loyd called on the sector to‘turn up the volume’ and mobilise its millions ofmembers to reassert the power of heritage as,‘the theatre of emotion, enterprise andeducation.’ He said, ‘We must remindGovernment that the golden goose of heritagecannot continue to lay golden eggs if it is notfed...Government cannot reap the benefitswithout more sympathetic and supportivepolicies.’ He called for an escape from the shorttermism of electoral cycles to a generationalvision of what our heritage should be like.

Dame Jenny’s headline message was that thestatus quo is not an option. Acknowledging thatcuts in public funding were the greatest challengefacing the sector, she called on the heritagecommunity to embrace change, be more creativewith fundraising, more enterprising with businessmodels and work in partnership. She said thatHLF will use the carrot of funding to encouragecouncils to invest in their historic assets and lookat applicants’ track records when consideringapplications. She concluded with optimism thatwith the public appetite for heritage nevergreater, the sector can face the future withconfidence.

Current Archaeology awards2013As well as the biennial British ArchaeologicalAwards which were founded in 1976, there arealso the annual Current Archaeology Awardssponsored by the periodical Current Archaeology.These awards were started in 2009.

For 2013 there were four CurrentArchaeology Awards and for these Awardsreaders of Current Archaeology and people ingeneral could vote online for their choice from ashortlist. Unlike the British Archaeological Awardsthere are no panels of judges. This year nearly12,000 votes were cast.

The Current Archaeology Awards ceremonyfor 2013 was held on 1 March at the University ofLondon’s Senate House in Bloomsbury as part ofthe Current Archaeology Live! conference. PhilHarding, well known from the television series

Time Team, received the Archaeologist of the Yearaward. Phil, often in a trench, speaks with a broadWest Country accent and wears a broad-brimmedhat with a feather in it. Not surprisingly theUniversity of Leicester’s Richard Buckley receivedthe award for the Research Project of the Year –for the search for King Richard III.

Rebecca Jones received the Book of the YearAward for Roman Camps in Britain and theRescue Dig of the Year Award went to CanterburyArchaeological Trust for their work at Folkestone– ‘Roman villa or Iron Age oppidum?’ The villaoverlays a major Iron Age port which receivedlarge quantities of high status goods from theContinent.

Robert Carr

Heroic contribution of volunteerscelebratedDerek Morton from the Portland Works inSheffield and Chris White from the BluebellRailway in Sussex were both celebrated asoutstanding volunteers at The Heritage AllianceHeroes Awards 2013 ceremony. This is the fourthyear of the Alliance’s award scheme, sponsoredby Ecclesiastical as part of the Heritage Dayprogramme.

Derek Morton took first prize at this year’sawards thanks to his work rescuing PortlandWorks, a grade II building, site of the world’s firststainless steel cutlery manufacture. He led fellowvolunteers in a campaign to block the worksconversion into flats and fundraise over £250,000to buy, manage and conserve the building.

Chris White was named runner up for hiscontribution as Infrastructure Director to theBluebell Railway and his role in its expansionfrom Sheffield Park to East Grinstead. The fouryear, £3.5 million project was delivered byvolunteers.

Heritage Alliance Chair, Loyd Grossman, whopresented the Awards said, “We want tocelebrate our magnificent heritage volunteers.They are the lifeblood of our sector.”

HLF update on local authorityfundingSince 2010, the Heritage Lottery Fund has lookedat the pattern of local authority spending. Asbefore, the latest report Local Authority Fundingfor Heritage: 2013 update (England and Scotland)also reviews six local authorities in more detail.

For England, it finds that spending by LocalAuthorities (LAs) on combined heritage (archives,heritage, museums and galleries, andconservation and listed building planning policy)fell from 2010/11 to 2011/12 from £461m to£419m in nominal terms. The biggest drop lay inthe conservation and listed building policysubsector – from £44m to £36m. Incomegeneration for combined heritage also fell from£120m in 2010/11 to £107m in 2011/12. Thereport also analyses expenditure and revenues inthe 20 largest (heritage) spending localauthorities. In this table Manchester tops the listwith a reported current expenditure (2011/12) ofjust over £15m followed by the City of Londonwith over £12m.

Analysing the case studies, the HLF finds thata sense of fragility persists. The cuts inevitablyreduce LA capacity, although some officers feelthis is compensated for by more efficientstructures and new partnerships. Less strong LAsremain nervous about the future, and even instronger LAs officers warn that further cuts wouldinflict real damage.

Daw Mill CollieryThe Staffordshire – Warwickshire Thick Coal Seamwhich in places can be 30 to 45 feet thick is proneto spontaneous combustion as is similar coal inGermany. There has been concern regarding thefuture of Daw Mill Colliery in Warwickshirebecause of the projected route of HS2 but the pithas been closed finally because of undergroundfires which seem to have been too difficult to putout. The two shafts at Daw Mill have beenbackfilled with limestone and sealed with a clayplug. The shafts will be capped with concrete.

Derek Morton and Chris White with Loyd Grossman


Daw Mill has an inclined drift as well as twoshafts. Last autumn a rise in the level of carbonmonoxide was detected in the colliery drift andwhen the drift terminal building was openedsmoke issued from the entrance. Work wassuspended and air sampling undertaken. Analysisidentified that there had been a furtherspontaneous combustion most probably in the pitbottom. Additional controls have beenimplemented to allow work to recommence andfurther measures have been taken to disperse thesmoke flowing from the drift. It is expected thatthe smoke will become darker in time but therewill be no impact on the local environment. Workto eliminate the flow of air into the mine andstarve the fire of oxygen was expected to taketwo weeks to complete.

In 2008 Daw Mill working the thickest coalseam in the country was producing a third of thetotal UK output. An estimated 56 million tons ofcoal remain.

Robert Carr

Crane accidentsThe commonest accident involving mobile cranesoccurs when ground under the outriggers orstabilisers gives way as the load is slewed orjibbed out. There have been several instances ofcranes toppling into rivers and canals when liftingboats. In most cases investigations have shownthat the ground that the crane was standing ondid not have sufficient load bearing capacity forthe crane plus an off centre load, so the jackspushed into the ground causing the crane and itsload to fall over. The well publicised accident lastFebruary when a 90 ton crane overturned into theLeeds and Liverpool canal has led to newguidelines requiring an assessment of the loadbearing capacity of the ground and anassessment of the peak load plus a riskassessment.

The upturned crane became something of atourist attraction; fortunately no one was hurt.

Demolition of the world’slongest cableway The Forsby-Köping limestone cableway, was a 42km aerial tramway running from Forsby inVingåker, about 100 miles west of Stockholm, toKöping, where cement was manufactured until1978, and later various limestone derivatives. Itwas taken out of service in 1997 but kept inworking order. By that time all longer industrialcableways had been demolished making it theworld’s longest cableway in working order.

Demolition started on 26 June. The fullyfunctioning cableway was run one last time ascars were removed from the track and sold forscrap.

The cableway was built in 1939 by ABNordströms Linbanor for Skånska Cement AB tosupply the new cement factory in Köping.

Limestone from the Forsby quarry wascoarsely crushed and sorted by hand. Passingcableway cars were automatically loaded from astorage silo. After the passage to Köping, carswere automatically unloaded and the limestonewas fine-ground for cement production. Thecableway was supported by 235 concrete trestlesand the limestone was transported in 750 bucket-shaped cars, each carrying 1200 kg, a totalcapacity of 90 metric tons per hour.

In June 1997 the track was taken out ofservice and Forsby limestone has since beentransported by road. By then, the cableway hadtransported a total of 25 million tons of rock andbeen in operation for 56 years. Since then thecableway has been preserved as industrialheritage, test run each year and subjected tosome degree of maintenance.

In November 2009, the current ownerNordkalk announced that demolition was beingplanned, following unsuccessful attempts totransfer it to a suitable caretaker. In December2011, evaluation for classification as cultural orworld heritage was proposed, but this was notsuccessful.

The International Committee for theConservation of the Industrial Heritage – TICCIH –

was alerted of the urgent situation and wrote anopen letter in February 2013 addressed to keyorganizations including the Swedish nationalheritage board. This letter reinforced the singularimportance of the Forsby-Köping cableway astransportation heritage, urging the authoritiesinvolved to avert demolition and assure itspreservation.

Little Willie tank honoured atBovingtonAn Engineering Heritage Award was given inDecember by the Institution of MechanicalEngineers to what is said to be the world’s firsttank, which is on display at the Tank Museum inBovington, Dorset. The 18 ton prototype tank,known as Little Willie, was built in 1915 byWilliam Foster & Co but it never saw actionbecause it was superseded by a new, improveddesign. John Wood, Chairman of the Institution’sEngineering Heritage Committee, described it as‘British engineering at its finest. Despite it neverseeing combat, Little Willie’s design was hugelyinnovative and designers and engineers used it asa starting point for many of the tanks whichfollowed later. It really did change the face ofmodern warfare.’

Peter Stanier

Historic canal notices A collection of notices from the Trent & MerseyCanal have been donated to Canal & River Trust’sWaterways Archive at Ellesmere Port.

The notices, which mostly cover the period of1785 to 1813, cover rates and charges,instructions to employees and to boaters,byelaws, crime and crime prevention, and ‘publicrelations’.

Donated to the archive by the Railway &Canal Historical Society – who, when they heardthat someone wished to dispose of some Trent &Mersey Canal notices which they had inherited,decided to buy them in order that that they couldbecome available to anyone interested in canalhistory.

Archivist Linda Barley said; ‘This is aremarkable collection which will deepen ourknowledge of the rules and regulations whichgoverned every aspect of canal life during theseyears. The collection is currently being digitisedand will be available to view online when ournew image website goes live at the end of theyear.’

In total there are 115 notices, of which nineare duplicates, ranging in size from 7½x6 inchesup to 22x17½ inches. They are glued on hand-numbered pages bound in a cloth cover, but thismust have been an official compilation becausethe last page contains a printed index.

NEWS

VISIT THE AIA WEBSITEwww.industrial-archaeology.org


PUBLICATIONS

Local Society and other periodicals received

Abstracts will appear in Industrial Archaeology Review.

Bristol Industrial Archaeological Society Bulletin, 140, Winter 2013

Cumbria Industrial History Society Bulletin, 87, December 2013

Greater London Industrial Archaeology Society Newsletter, 269,December 2013

Histelec News: Newsletter of the South Western ElectricityHistorical Society, 55, December 2013

ICE Panel for Historical Engineering Works Newsletter, 140,December 2013

Manchester Region Industrial Archaeology Society Newsletter, 145,November 2013

Merseyside Industrial Heritage Society Newsletter, 328, November2013; 329, December 2013

Midland Wind and Watermills Group Newsletter, 106, August 2013

Piers: the Journal of the National Piers Society, 108, Summer 2013;109, Autumn 2013

Surrey Industrial History Group Newsletter, 195, September 2013;196,November 2013

Sussex Industrial Archaeology Society Newsletter, 160, October2013

Sussex Mills Group Newsletter, 160, October 2013

Trevithick Society Journal, 40, 2013

Trevithick Society Newsletter,161 Autumn 2013

War Memorials Trust Bulletin, 59, November 2013

WaterWords: News from the Waterworks Museum, Hereford,Autumn 2013

Welsh Mines Society Newsletter, 69, Autumn 2013

Worcestershire Industrial Archaeology and History SocietyNewsletter, November 2013

Publications received electronicallyTICCIH Bulletin, 62, 4th Quarter 2013

Hampshire Mills Group, 103 Winter 2013

Society for Industrial Archaeology Newsletter, Vol 42, No4 2013

BOOKS

Bromyard Road, A Study of Urban Development, by David Attwood,Occasional Paper No 2, Worcestershire Industrial Archaeology and LocalHistory Society. 2013.84pp Numerous illus, plans and maps.

A detailed study of the development alongside a single road leading outof Worcester between 1876 and 1904 based on the plans deposited. A 1997photographic survey alongside the plans gives an interesting picture of theway a late Victorian middle class area has matured. For copies contact thesociety.

MISCELLANY

The 2014 BritishArchaeological Awards

The 2014 British Archaeological Awards will take place on Monday 14July 2014 at the British Museum and is one of the key events of theCBA’s Festival of British Archaeology, a huge UK wide celebration ofarchaeology with over 650 events, attended by more than 250,000people. Every year, the Festival gains huge national TV, radio, newspaperand magazine coverage.

Nominations are being invited in the following categories:Best Archaeological ProjectBest Community-engagement Archaeology ProjectBest Archaeological BookBest Public Presentation of ArchaeologyBest Archaeological Innovation

Please visit the new website for the British Archaeological Awards,where you can find full details on the criteria for each award, along witha downloadable nomination form. This year there is also the facility tocomplete the nomination form on-line. Nominations will close on Friday28 February 2014.

Too late for ChristmasExpressions of interest were invited for a number of cast iron columnssimilar to those in the attached photograph that are available from aredundant overbridge at Dundee Station. These cast iron columns wereprobably manufactured at Wormit on the south side of the river Tay atthe same time as the original Tay Railway Bridge, 1875. The columns areabout 4.5m long and probably weigh in the region of 4-5 tons. Thosewith small gardens and easily tempted will be relieved to know that theclosing date was 24 December 2013. Jerry Swift of Network Rail wouldhave been the man to contact.

Which way now?

In 1924, the US Federal Government funded 70 foot long concretearrows to be built every 10 miles or so along established airmail routesfrom coast to coast to help the pilots trace their way across America.Painted bright yellow, they were each built alongside a 50 foot talltower with a rotating gas-powered light and a little rest house for thefolks who maintained the generators and lights. In remote areas somecan still be found.

20 © Association for Industrial Archaeology, February 2014Registered 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 7DX

DIARY

11-12 April 2014THE IRONBRIDGE WEEKENDLime in Historic landscapes andbuildings. Contact: [email protected]

12 April 2014SOUTH WALES AND WESTOF ENGLAND IACONFERENCEBaxter College KidderminsterBooking forms and programmeChristine Sylvester 12 Upper ParkStreet Worcester WR5 1EX SAEplease 01905 354 679

12 April 2014SOUTH EAST REGIONAL IACONFERENCERussell School, Croydon. Bricks,Bugs and Computers. For detailswww.glias.org.uk or 0208 658 8666

10 May 201487TH EAST MIDLANDSINDUSTRIAL ARCHAEOLOGYCONFERENCEChesterfield, the Centre of IndustrialEngland. Details at: www.nedias.co.uk

15 - 18 May 2014SIA ANNUAL CONFERENCE,PORTLAND, MAINE, USADetails: www.siahq.org

2-7 June 2014AIA SPRING TOUR 2014,MORAVIA (EASTERN CZECHREPUBLIC), 16th Century Watermill, 18thCentury Blast Furnace and manyother historic sites. Details: i n d u s t r i a l - a r c h a eo l o g y. o r g /aoverseas.htm

19-22 June 2014FIRST INTERNATIONALCONFERENCE ON EARLYMAIN LINE RAILWAYSCaernarfon, North Wales www.earlymainlinerailways.org.uk

5-10 September 2014AIA ANNUAL CONFERENCE,CHESTER For details go to:industrial-archaeology.org

September 2014SIA FALL TOUR, COLUMBUS,INDIANAA city noted for both its top-namearchitecture and its production ofdiesel motorsDetails www.siahq.org

Coate Water diving platform, Swindon – see page 16 Photo: Peter Stanier

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:[email protected]

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: 01740 656280.

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

Information for the diaryshould be sent directly to the

Editor as soon as it isavailable. Items will normallyappear in successive issues up

to the date of the event.

More Diary Dates can be found on the AIA website at

www.industrial-archaeology.org

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AIA News 140 Spring 2007