A panoramic view of the steel works taken from Brotton Miner’s Hospital or somewhere near. Still in the days of steam locomotives on the railway, so the works would be in full production.
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Here’s a happy crew taking a tea-break in the sunshine. It’s Skinningrove works, but which part – and who were they and when! Eric Trembath tells us:”This looks like the riggers gang. Two of my old work mates top row 2nd right Tony Prior (from Whitby). Bottom row 2nd right Dennis Theaker, sadly now deceased. Many happy years working with them both. I was the last of the ’Grove riggers and retired in 2008, the end of an era! Eric.” Many thanks to Eric Trembath for that update.
A view over the village to the ironworks, taken from the allotments on the east side of the valley. This card was produced at the same time as the one of Skinningrove from the cliffs, by William Richardson & Sons, Loftus; and was one of the Penny Real Photo Series. Image courtesy of Beryl Morris.
A very atmospheric shot of No. 5 blast furnace casting on Skinningrove; you can almost taste the sulphur! The ”gate” in the sand runner is to skim the slag off the iron and divert it towards the waiting slag ladles, the iron carries on straight ahead. The most dangerous time in the tapping process is when the liquid iron and slag are almost exhausted – because the system is under pressure the pressure seal can blow through the tap-hole sending slag and iron spraying in all directions, very pretty, but very dangerous! The device which can be seen facing the camera is actually the “Clay gun”, a device for injecting clay into the taphole at the end of a cast, to stop the flow of iron. It looks like the Frontside lads are tidying up at the end of a cast. The large circular pipe above is the “Bustle main” which fed hot blast from the stoves into the furnace via the tuyeres which were spaced radially round the furnace. Latterly the Clay gun was powered by electricity, and it was the shift electricians duty to be there in case the gun failed to work, as things could get quite hairy if the gun failed to stop the taphole. The procedure was to start to bring the furnace “off blast” if the gun failed. In the meantime as a safety precaution the furnace would “Pull wind”. Image courtesy of the Pem Holliday Collection.
A picture postcard showing the blast furnaces and pig beds at Skinningrove Iron Works. These are the 5 original, stone-built, blast furnaces at Skinningrove Iron Works (no Steel in the title then – we are not even sure it was called Skinningrove Iron Works – at this time). The furnaces were hand-loaded with large two-wheeled barrows which ran on knife-edge iron wheels (to minimise the rolling resistance), hence the gallery connecting the furnaces to the lift housings. The iron was tapped directly into a sand gully, called a sow, which had many branches, called pigs (hence the term pig-iron), each the same size and pressed into the sand with a specially-shaped former. When sufficiently cool the pigs were loaded onto trucks and taken to the jetty, via an incline, rope-hauled, railway, and then in company steamships to steelworks and iron foundries in Durham and Middlesbrough. Eventually they were even transported to Europe. All of these stone-built furnaces were eventually demolished and new furnaces built; of which no. 3 and no. 5 survived. Image courtesy of the Pem Holliday Collection.
It is believed that this photograph (and several others in previous posts) must have been taken after Skinningrove took delivery of the Sentinel diesels; we believe these locomotives are awaiting disposal, they are certainly all cold! Image courtesy of the Pem Holliday Collection.
Skinningrove Iron and Steel Works in the days of steam locomotives; on the right the Fitting Shop with the Blacksmith’s Shop behind it. Locomotive “Elizabeth” with a rake of galley (iron ore) pans, passing under the pedestrian walkway over the ore crusher; Fitting shop side. The mobile steam crane behind was “Jumbo”. Image courtesy of the Pem Holliday Collection and thanks to Eric Johnson for the updating information.
This must be getting rather monotonous, but archives are sometimes! This photograph is about 30 degrees right of the previous post and shows that there are three blast furnaces in this set – definitely Clay Lane – taken off wind and closed down after the big one at Redcar was blown in. All three had differing hearth diameters and produced per day varied. These three all ran under high top pressure – if you look closely at one and five you will count the three bleeders at the top – but if you follow the downcomer up you will notice a fourth smaller one. This arrangement allowed a higher gas flow rate without taking too much dust out. Neil Judson advised: “No 2 furnace did not have high top pressure.” Whilst Tony Bell tells us: “Your original facts were incorrect regarding hearth diameters, they were all different. Also production was 2 to 2.4 thousand tonnes a day with no.1 furnace and no. 3 furnace had high top pressure but was rarely used.” Image courtesy of the Pem Holliday Collection, information courtesy of Robert Proctor, also thanks to Neil Judson and Tony Bell for the updates..
That big silo-type unit looks so familiar – it should do – it stood behind the left-most furnace of the three at Clay Lane steel works. Image courtesy of the Pem Holliday Collection and thanks to Eric Johnson for confirmation of the location.
A gloomy shot of a distant blast furnace and the single one at Skinningrove Iron and Steel Works. The building on the right in the middle distance with the ”saw-tooth” roof would be the fitting shop, behind that is the Blacksmith’s Shop with the big extractor on the end chimney. Behind that is visible the Sinter Plant and the blast furnace of course is Number 5. Mike Robinson tells us: ”I am sure that the dark building in the foreground to the right of the railway lines is the corner of the timber store on the end of the joiners shop. We often had derailments outside.” Eric Trembath further assists with: ” Yes; that was the joiner’s timber store, the riggers department took it over when the joiners shut and we used it for storing wire slings and crane ropes until I retired in 2008. This building was always a sore point with the works manager but we managed to keep hold of it.” Image courtesy of Eric Johnson, thanks to Mike Robinson and Eric Trembath for these updates. |
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