Park Gate Iron And Steel Company
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The Park Gate Iron and Steel Company was a British company that smelted iron ore and turned it into
rolled steel In metalworking, rolling is a metal forming process in which metal stock is passed through one or more pairs of rolls to reduce the thickness, to make the thickness uniform, and/or to impart a desired mechanical property. The concept is simil ...
and
semi-finished casting products Semi-finished casting products are intermediate castings produced in a steel mill that need further processing before being finished goods. There are four types: ''ingots'', ''blooms'', ''billets'', and ''slabs''. Ingot Ingots are large rough ...
. Its works was at
Parkgate, South Yorkshire Parkgate is a suburb of Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England. It has since been consumed by its neighbour, Rawmarsh and is in the ward of Rawmarsh from which it has been indistinguishable since the early 20th century. Toponymy Its name is s ...
on a triangular site bounded on two sides by the main road between
Rotherham Rotherham () is a large minster and market town in South Yorkshire, England. The town takes its name from the River Rother which then merges with the River Don. The River Don then flows through the town centre. It is the main settlement of ...
and
Barnsley Barnsley () is a market town in South Yorkshire, England. As the main settlement of the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley and the fourth largest settlement in South Yorkshire. In Barnsley, the population was 96,888 while the wider Borough has ...
( A633) and the
North Midland Railway The North Midland Railway was a British railway company, which opened its line from Derby to Rotherham (Masbrough) and Leeds in 1840. At Derby, it connected with the Birmingham and Derby Junction Railway and the Midland Counties Railway at what ...
main line between and . It also operated
ironstone Ironstone is a sedimentary rock, either deposited directly as a ferruginous sediment or created by chemical replacement, that contains a substantial proportion of an iron ore compound from which iron (Fe) can be smelted commercially. Not to be con ...
quarries in
Northamptonshire Northamptonshire (; abbreviated Northants.) is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2015, it had a population of 723,000. The county is administered by two unitary authorities: North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. It is ...
and
Leicestershire Leicestershire ( ; postal abbreviation Leics.) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East Midlands, England. The county borders Nottinghamshire to the north, Lincolnshire to the north-east, Rutland to the east, Northamptonshire t ...
.


Early history

Records from 1823 show the establishment of a Parkgate Ironworks by Samuel Sanderson and a Mr Watson. This was at the junction of Rotherham Road and Taylors Lane with part of the works facing the
Greasbrough Canal The Greasbrough Canal was a private canal built by the Marquess of Rockingham to serve his coal mining interests in and around the village of Greasbrough, near Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England. It opened in 1780, and the Newbiggin branch was ...
. The company was sold in 1832 and became the Birmingham Tin Plate Company. Over the years, along with the business changing hands several times, the works expanded across Rotherham Road to the Park Gate site, which continued until the 1970s. The first
blast furnace A blast furnace is a type of metallurgical furnace used for smelting to produce industrial metals, generally pig iron, but also others such as lead or copper. ''Blast'' refers to the combustion air being "forced" or supplied above atmospheric ...
was installed in 1839 and, after another change in ownership, a mill for the rolling of railway rails was installed in 1845. In 1854 Samuel Beale and Company made the cast iron armour plating for
Isambard Kingdom Brunel Isambard Kingdom Brunel (; 9 April 1806 – 15 September 1859) was a British civil engineer who is considered "one of the most ingenious and prolific figures in engineering history," "one of the 19th-century engineering giants," and "one ...
's ocean liner . Samuel Beale retired in 1864 and his son incorporated the company under the name Parkgate Iron Company Limited. Two more blast furnaces were brought into operation in 1871. Further new plant was added over the next decade, including a
slab Slab or SLAB may refer to: Physical materials * Concrete slab, a flat concrete plate used in construction * Stone slab, a flat stone used in construction * Slab (casting), a length of metal * Slab (geology), that portion of a tectonic plate tha ...
mill, a large plate mill, a
billet A billet is a living-quarters to which a soldier is assigned to sleep. Historically, a billet was a private dwelling that was required to accept the soldier. Soldiers are generally billeted in barracks or garrisons when not on combat duty, alth ...
mill and three
open hearth furnace An open-hearth furnace or open hearth furnace is any of several kinds of industrial furnace in which excess carbon and other impurities are burnt out of pig iron to produce steel. Because steel is difficult to manufacture owing to its high melt ...
s. In 1888 the company was renamed the Parkgate Iron & Steel Company Limited to reflect its increase in steelmaking. By 1908 the works had converted entirely to steel production and until 1946 its main products were steel ingots for further processing, in particular
steel plate Steel is an alloy made up of iron with added carbon to improve its strength and fracture resistance compared to other forms of iron. Many other elements may be present or added. Stainless steels that are corrosion- and oxidation-resistant ty ...
and armour plate for shipbuilding and solid bar products ranging from to . The company also made sectional shapes and in particular arches and props for mining. In 1914 the company opened new head offices on Broad Street, Rotherham by James Knight.


Iron and steel making plant

After
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
the company bought land at nearby Roundwood, and by 1920 a tenth open hearth furnace was added and new rolling capacity on , and rolling mills began production. In 1946 steel plate rolling ended. In 1953 the continuous bar mill was completed, which was to roll both straight and coiled bar. In 1963 the new site covered some and the Roundwood site, beside the
Midland Main Line The Midland Main Line is a major railway line in England from London to Nottingham and Sheffield in the Midlands. It comprises the lines from London's St Pancras station via Leicester, Derby/Nottingham and Chesterfield in the East Midlands. ...
north of the main works, and covering another was starting production. The plant then included two mechanically-charged blast furnaces feeding 10 open hearth steel making furnaces which, in turn, fed two primary mills for rolling blooms and billets and six finishing mills rolling a wide range of blooms, billets, slabs, sections, bars and strip. The Roundwood site had an 11" continuous bar mill and a narrow hot strip mill. Capacity at the time was about 425,000 tons of carbon, low alloy, and
free-cutting steel Free machining steel is steel that forms small chips when machined. This increases the machinability of the material by breaking the chips into small pieces, thus avoiding entanglement in the machinery. This enables automatic equipment to run withou ...
and ingots. In 1951 the 1945–51 Labour Government nationalised most large British iron and steel companies under the Iron & Steel Act 1949. The Parkgate company became part of the resulting
Iron and Steel Corporation of Great Britain The Iron and Steel Corporation of Great Britain was a nationalised industry, set up in 1949 by Clement Attlee's Labour government. The Iron & Steel Act 1949 took effect on 15 February 1951, the Corporation becoming the sole shareholder of 80 of t ...
. After the 1951 General Elections the 1951–57 Conservative Government privatised most of the corporation, and in 1956 Parkgate was sold to
Tube Investments TI Group plc (formerly "Tube Investments") was a holding company for specialised engineering companies. It was based in Abingdon, Oxfordshire. It was registered as ''Tube Investments'' in 1919, combining the seamless steel tube businesses of Tu ...
. Major development work was planned for a site at
Aldwarke Aldwarke is an industrial area in South Yorkshire, England. It is in the Eastern suburbs of Rotherham Rotherham () is a large minster and market town in South Yorkshire, England. The town takes its name from the River Rother which then m ...
, to begin production in the 1960s. This included
Kaldo process A Kaldo converter (using the ''Kaldo process'' or ''Stora-Kaldo process'') is a rotary vessel oxygen based metal refining method. Originally applied to the refining of iron into steel, with most installations in the 1960s, the process is (2014) used ...
basic oxygen steelmaking plant which was fed from the blast furnaces at Parkgate, ladles being moved by rail between the sites. This development also included hot rolling facilities. By the 1970s demand had changed and part of the old plant was demolished, the remainder of the Parkgate site was closed in 1985 with the closure of the heat treatment department. In 1976 rolling capacity was increased with the coming on stream of the
Thrybergh Thrybergh is a village and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham in South Yorkshire, England, from Rotherham. It had a population of 4,327 in 2001, reducing to 4,058 at the 2011 Census. History Thrybergh – which is mentione ...
Bar Mill.


Rail links

All the sites had rail links. The original site also had access to the Greasborough canal. The
Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway The Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway (MS&LR) was formed in 1847 when the Sheffield, Ashton-under-Lyne and Manchester Railway joined with authorised but unbuilt railway companies, forming a proposed network from Manchester to Grimsb ...
(MS&LR) opened its Park Gate branch to serve the works in August 1873. The branch left the main line about south of and passed below the Midland line. Iron ore arrived here from the company's quarries south of
Hellidon Hellidon is a village and civil parish about south-west of Daventry in Northamptonshire, England. The parish area is about . It lies – above sea level on the north face of an ironstone ridge, its highest point, at Windmill Hill, being sou ...
,
Northamptonshire Northamptonshire (; abbreviated Northants.) is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2015, it had a population of 723,000. The county is administered by two unitary authorities: North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. It is ...
and east of
Sproxton, Leicestershire Sproxton () is a village and civil parish within the Borough of Melton in Leicestershire, England, close to the border with Lincolnshire. It has approximately 80 occupied dwellings (2021) and a population of 480, rising to 658 (including Cost ...
. The company also held shares in iron ore mines at Appleby near Scunthorpe. The
Midland Railway The Midland Railway (MR) was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1844. The Midland was one of the largest railway companies in Britain in the early 20th century, and the largest employer in Derby, where it had its headquarters. It am ...
had links next to station that served sidings next to the blast furnace plant, ore arriving here from the quarry in Northamptonshire. When Parkgate opened its quarry at Hellidon in 1917 it had a
mineral railway An industrial railway is a type of railway (usually private) that is not available for public transportation and is used exclusively to serve a particular industrial, logistics, or military site. In regions of the world influenced by British ra ...
built to link it with the
Great Central Main Line The Great Central Main Line (GCML), also known as the London Extension of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway (MS&LR), is a former railway line in the United Kingdom. The line was opened in 1899 and built by the Great Central Railw ...
at . Parkgate's Sproxton quarry had a mineral railway to link it with the
East Coast Main Line The East Coast Main Line (ECML) is a electrified railway between London and Edinburgh via Peterborough, Doncaster, York, Darlington, Durham and Newcastle. The line is a key transport artery on the eastern side of Great Britain running broa ...
south of . A 1917
Manning Wardle Manning Wardle was a steam locomotive manufacturer based in Hunslet, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. Precursor companies The city of Leeds was one of the earliest centres of locomotive building; Matthew Murray built the first commercially s ...
steam locomotive that worked first the Hellidon line and later the Sproxton line is preserved on the
Kent and East Sussex Railway The Kent and East Sussex Railway (K&ESR) refers to both a historical private railway company in Kent and East Sussex in England, as well as a heritage railway currently running on part of the route of the historical company. Historical company ...
. Links to the present site are maintained either through the New Yard, adjacent to the MS&LR line near Parkgate and Aldwarke station, or directly into the 11" mill from the Midland line at
Aldwarke Junction Aldwarke Junction at Parkgate near Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England is a major railway junction. It was constructed in 1965 as a part of the Sheffield district rail rationalisation plan. Location The junction is northeast of the site of ...
. The works has had an internal rail system from its early days and this now takes traffic from the New Yard throughout the site. In the late 1950s the system was dieselised with 10 four-coupled locomotives built by Brush Engineering of
Loughborough Loughborough ( ) is a market town in the Charnwood borough of Leicestershire, England, the seat of Charnwood Borough Council and Loughborough University. At the 2011 census the town's built-up area had a population of 59,932 , the second larg ...
. In the mid-1960s these were joined by six Brush six-coupled locomotives. The network has been cut back over the years but there is enough work to warrant its retention. The Parkgate fleet was joined by some locomotives from the Rotherham Works of Steel, Peech and Tozer when the latter was closed, including examples built by the
Yorkshire Engine Company The Yorkshire Engine Company (YEC) was a small independent locomotive manufacturer in Sheffield, England. The company was formed in 1865 and produced locomotives and carried out general engineering work until 1965. It mainly built shunting engi ...
of Sheffield.


References

*


External links

*
Men of Steel
' (1948) *
Progress Parkgate
' (1961–1965)
Park Gate Iron and Steel Co
on ''Grace's Guide'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Park Gate Iron And Steel Company Companies based in Rotherham Ironworks and steelworks in England Steel companies of the United Kingdom