The Eagle Ironworks was an ironworks owned by W. Lucy & Co. on the

Oxford Canal The Oxford Canal is a narrowboat canal in central England linking the City of Oxford with the Coventry Canal at Hawkesbury (just north of Coventry and south of Bedworth) via Banbury and Rugby. Completed in 1790, it connects to the River Thames ...

Jericho, Oxford Jericho is an historic suburb of the English city of Oxford. It consists of the streets bounded by the Oxford Canal, Worcester College, Walton Street and Walton Well Road. Located outside the old city wall, it was originally a place for tra ...

, England. William Carter founded the works in 1812 with a shop in the

High Street High Street is a common street name for the primary business street of a city, town, or village, especially in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth. It implies that it is the focal point for business, especially shopping. It is also a metonym fo ...

and moved it to its site beside the canal in 1825. It was on

Walton Well Road Walton Well Road is a road, about 400 metres (a quarter mile) long, near the centre of Oxford, England. It provides a link from central Oxford to Port Meadow. Location The road marks the northern edge of the district known as Jericho. At the ...

at the northern end of Walton Street and backed onto St Sepulchre's Cemetery. The works ceased production in 2005, was demolished in 2007 and has since been redeveloped, mainly with apartments.

History

William Carter had an ironmongery shop in High Street, Oxford by 1812, when he founded an iron

foundry A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal into a mold, and removing the mold material after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals pr ...

in Summertown which was then a rural location north of Oxford. He moved the foundry to the banks of the Oxford Canal in 1825, one of the first developments in what is now the district of Jericho in central Oxford. The company specialised in iron castings including lamp-posts,

manhole cover A manhole cover or maintenance hole cover is a removable plate forming the lid over the opening of a manhole, an opening large enough for a person to pass through that is used as an access point for an underground vault or pipe. It is designed t ...

s, ornamental

ironwork Ironwork is any weapon, artwork, utensil, or architectural feature made of iron, especially one used for decoration. There are two main types of ironwork: wrought iron and cast iron. While the use of iron dates as far back as 4000BC, it was the ...

and

agricultural machinery Agricultural machinery relates to the mechanical structures and devices used in farming or other agriculture. There are many types of such equipment, from hand tools and power tools to tractors and the countless kinds of farm implements that ...

. William Grafton became a partner and in 1830 Carter moved to the Eagle Foundry in

Leamington Hastings Leamington Hastings is a small village and larger civil parish in Warwickshire, England. The civil parish covers Leamington Hastings itself, plus the nearby hamlets of Broadwell, Hill and Kites Hardwick. Its population in the 2011 census was ...

, Warwickshire. Grafton continued to manage the foundry in Oxford, which became called the Eagle Ironworks. In 1854 the company bought the freehold for the site from St John's College, which owned much of north Oxford. When Grafton died in 1861, William Lucy, his partner, took over the running of the foundry. When he in turn died in 1873, the name of the ironworks became "Lucy's". The growth of

North Oxford North Oxford is a suburban part of the city of Oxford in England. It was owned for many centuries largely by St John's College, Oxford and many of the area's Victorian houses were initially sold on leasehold by the College. Overview The le ...

and the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

colleges in the

Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardia ...

expanded Lucy's market. The company responded by adding a new smith shop and foundry to the Eagle Ironworks, designed by local architect William Wilkinson and completed in 1879. Lucy's became a

limited company In a limited company, the liability of members or subscribers of the company is limited to what they have invested or guaranteed to the company. Limited companies may be limited by shares or by guarantee. In a company limited by shares, the lia ...

in 1897. It expanded both its product range and its market, including shelving and storage equipment that it sold throughout the country. In the decade after becoming a limited company, Lucy's accordingly increased and diversified the Eagle Ironworks buildings, including a north-lit factory extension designed by George Gardiner and completed in 1901. Production changed to electrical engineering and stainless steel, including arc lamps, electric lamp fittings,

steam roller A steamroller (or steam roller) is a form of road roller – a type of heavy construction machinery used for leveling surfaces, such as roads or airfields – that is powered by a steam engine. The leveling/flattening action is achieved through ...

castings and, appropriately for Oxford, library stacking. In both

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 ...

and

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

Lucy's made munitions. Between the wars it concentrated on electrical engineering and making

switchgear In an electric power system, a switchgear is composed of electrical disconnect switches, fuses or circuit breakers used to control, protect and isolate electrical equipment. Switchgear is used both to de-energize equipment to allow work to be ...

. After World War II it also made machine tools.

Closure and redevelopment

The Oxford Canal by Walton Well Road - geograph

In the 1960s the company built two large blocks on its wharves by the canal. In 2005 the company's new US owners moved manufacturing overseas from the United Kingdom and in 2007 it demolished the Eagle Ironworks and redeveloped the site with apartment blocks, which it lets out directly to tenants, trading as Lucy Properties. This has been controversial for town planning reasons. In 2006, the site's archaeology was evaluated prior to redevelopment. During the archaeological excavations a 17th-century pit and a possible 19th-century

well A well is an excavation or structure created in the ground by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The ...

were found. A new residential road, William Lucy Way, was developed at this time, on the other side of the Canal from the original Lucy's site.

Literature

Early in the 20th century the poet and short story writer A. E. Coppard (1878–1957) worked at the Eagle Ironworks, as recounted in his autobiography ''It's Me, O Lord!'' Oxford-based author

Philip Pullman Sir Philip Nicholas Outram Pullman (born 19 October 1946) is an English writer. His books include the fantasy trilogy '' His Dark Materials'' and '' The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ'', a fictionalised biography of Jesus. In 2008, ''T ...

featured the Eagle Ironworks in his 2003 novel '' Lyra's Oxford''. The story includes a fictitious "Randolph Lucy", a 17th-century alchemist with an

eagle Eagle is the common name for many large birds of prey of the family Accipitridae. Eagles belong to several groups of genera, some of which are closely related. Most of the 68 species of eagle are from Eurasia and Africa. Outside this area, j ...

- demon who had his laboratory on nearby Juxon Street. An entry for the Eagle Ironworks is included in an extract from a fictitious version of the

Baedeker Verlag Karl Baedeker, founded by Karl Baedeker on July 1, 1827, is a German publisher and pioneer in the business of worldwide travel guides. The guides, often referred to simply as " Baedekers" (a term sometimes used to refer to similar works fro ...

guide.

References

Sources and further reading

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External links