Stirchley Chimney is a chimney located in

Telford Town Park Telford Town Park is a park and Local Nature Reserve in Telford in Shropshire. In 2015, it was voted "UK's Best Park" in the inaugural public competition organised by Fields in Trust History The Anglo-Saxon period saw the first real chang ...

. The chimney also marks a notable waypoint on the

South Telford Heritage Trail The South Telford Heritage Trail is a circular, waymarked walking route that passes by forty-nine heritage sites in the English town of Telford. The route The trail begins and ends in Telford Town Park and passes through the parishes of Stirc ...

. Measuring high, construction of the chimney was completed in 1873. Stirchley Chimney

History

In 1790

Thomas Botfield Thomas Botfield (14 February 1762 – 17 January 1843) was an English metallurgist, geologist, magistrate and deputy-lieutenant of Shropshire, and inventor of a method of smelting and making iron using the principle of "gas flame or heated air ...

began the construction of an

ironworks An ironworks or iron works is an industrial plant where iron is smelted and where heavy iron and steel products are made. The term is both singular and plural, i.e. the singular of ''ironworks'' is ''ironworks''. Ironworks succeeded bloomeri ...

on the site, consisting of two

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 ...

s, a

forge A forge is a type of hearth used for heating metals, or the workplace (smithy) where such a hearth is located. The forge is used by the smith to heat a piece of metal to a temperature at which it becomes easier to shape by forging, or to th ...

, and a mill. The site was opened in 1828 and later expanded in order to produce bricks in 1838. In 1856, control of the site was granted to the Old Park Iron Company. Following the demise of the Old Park Iron Company, the blast furnaces were leased to the Wellington Iron & Coal Company, yet the company folded shortly after in 1877. It was during this tenure that the Stirchley Chimney was constructed. The blast furnaces continued to operate until 1885 until they were taken over by Wrekin Chemical Works in 1886, when the plant was converted in order to produce

tar Tar is a dark brown or black viscous liquid of hydrocarbons and free carbon, obtained from a wide variety of organic materials through destructive distillation. Tar can be produced from coal, wood, petroleum, or peat. "a dark brown or black bit ...

sulphur Sulfur (or sulphur in British English) is a chemical element with the symbol S and atomic number 16. It is abundant, multivalent and nonmetallic. Under normal conditions, sulfur atoms form cyclic octatomic molecules with a chemical formula ...

, lime salt,

wood naphtha Methanol (also called methyl alcohol and wood spirit, amongst other names) is an organic chemical and the simplest aliphatic alcohol, with the formula C H3 O H (a methyl group linked to a hydroxyl group, often abbreviated as MeOH). It is a li ...

and

charcoal Charcoal is a lightweight black carbon residue produced by strongly heating wood (or other animal and plant materials) in minimal oxygen to remove all water and volatile constituents. In the traditional version of this pyrolysis process, cal ...

. Production at the site ceased in 1932. From 1923 until 1935 the Tarslag company purchased the slag mounds surrounding the chimney in order to use the refuse for the purpose of road building. The

Tarmac Tarmac may refer to: Engineered surfaces * Tarmacadam, a mainly historical tar-based material for macadamising road surfaces, patented in 1902 * Asphalt concrete, a macadamising material using asphalt instead of tar which has largely superseded ta ...

company continued to remove slag from the site until 1964.

Recent restoration

The creation of Telford in 1969 led to the purchase of the site by the New Town Development Corporation.The decision was made to retain the Stirchley Chimney as a permanent reminder of the industry which once dominated the area. The chimney and the area around it was recently refurbished following years of neglect. The chimney now boasts information boards explaining its history to visitors. In 2020 work began to repoint the chimney with lime mortar. Work was suspended as a result of the UK Coronavirus lockdown. When the repointing resumed in May 2020 it was discovered that the chimney had become home to a nest of

kestrels The term kestrel (from french: crécerelle, derivative from , i.e. ratchet) is the common name given to several species of predatory birds from the falcon genus ''Falco''. Kestrels are most easily distinguished by their typical hunting behaviour ...

References

{{coord, 52.66389, -2.44441, format=dms, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title Telford and Wrekin Chimneys in the United Kingdom Buildings and structures completed in 1873