Belly helve hammer, Wortley Top Forge - geograph

Wortley Top Forge is an historic former

finery forge A finery forge is a forge used to produce wrought iron from pig iron by decarburization in a process called "fining" which involved liquifying cast iron in a fining hearth and removing carbon from the molten cast iron through oxidation. Finery ...

and ironworks originally dating back to the seventeenth century, although evidence suggests iron working took place in the vicinity as early as the fourteenth century. It is situated in the

metropolitan borough of Barnsley The Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley is a metropolitan borough in South Yorkshire, England; the main settlement is Barnsley and other notable towns include Penistone, Wombwell and Hoyland. The borough is bisected by the M1 motorway; it is ru ...

, in

South Yorkshire South Yorkshire is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and metropolitan county, metropolitan county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. The county has four council areas which are the cities of City of Doncaster, Doncaster and City of Sh ...

, England, on a loop of the River Don near the village of Wortley. The Top Forge was always closely related to Wortley Low Forge, a short distance

downstream Downstream may refer to: * Downstream (bioprocess) * Downstream (manufacturing) * Downstream (networking) * Downstream (software development) * Downstream (petroleum industry) * Upstream and downstream (DNA), determining relative positions on DNA ...

. One of the forges was probably built about 1639 (possibly both of them) and certainly existed by 1641, from which time the

ironmaster An ironmaster is the manager, and usually owner, of a forge or blast furnace for the processing of iron. It is a term mainly associated with the period of the Industrial Revolution, especially in Great Britain. The ironmaster was usually a large ...

s at Wortley were Thomas Cotton, and his son William Cotton (1627–1674); the latter being the father of Thomas Cotton. Cannonballs are said to have been made here during the

English Civil War The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I ("Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of re ...

. After that the

s usually belonged to a network of ironmasters led by members of the Spencer family of Cannon Hall,

Cawthorne Cawthorne is a village and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England. The village was once a centre of the iron and coal mining industry; today it is part of an affluent commuter belt west of Barnsley. A ...

, but not between 1676 and 1690, when they were rented by other ironmasters. The two forges were always leased together with a blast furnace, Nether Bank Furnace, until the latter's closure probably about 1780, all of them being rented from the Wortley family. In 1744, the forge was let to John Cockshutt (died 1774), who ran it with a partner. He also had a 'tinmill'. He was followed by his son, another John, who was succeeded by his brother James about 1800. James had worked at Merthyr Tydfil as a partner of William Crawshay in the

Cyfarthfa Ironworks The Cyfarthfa Ironworks were major 18th- and 19th-century ironworks in Cyfarthfa, on the north-western edge of Merthyr Tydfil, in South West Wales. The beginning The Cyfarthfa works were begun in 1765 by Anthony Bacon (by then a merchant in L ...

and when he returned to Wortley in 1791 after the dissolution of their partnership, he introduced puddling to Wortley, the tinmill probably being altered to roll blooms into bars of iron. After James' death in 1820, the works passed to relatives and then through various hands, coming into the hands of Thomas Andrews in 1849. On his death in 1871 he was followed by his son another

Thomas Andrews Thomas Andrews Jr. (7 February 1873 – 15 April 1912) was a British businessman and shipbuilder. He was managing director and head of the drafting department of the shipbuilding company Harland and Wolff in Belfast, Ireland. He was the nava ...

, who died in 1907. One of the buildings at Top Forge includes a date stone for 1713. However, the current layout of the building dates from the 1850s when the forge was turned over to the production of shafts and

axles An axle or axletree is a central shaft for a rotating wheel or gear. On wheeled vehicles, the axle may be fixed to the wheels, rotating with them, or fixed to the vehicle, with the wheels rotating around the axle. In the former case, bearin ...

mainly for use on railway wagons. Some of the earliest metallurgical experiments in the world were conducted at the site by the engineer and metallurgist

. Railway axles of the highest quality were manufactured at the site in the nineteenth century and exported all over the world. Production ceased around 1912, but parts of the site remained in use until 1929. One of the Top Forge hammers was run as a demonstration in 1933 or 1934. In 1955, the dream of C. R. Andrews (the son of the second Thomas) was fulfilled, the forge being reopened as an industrial museum by Sheffield Trades Historical Society (now South Yorkshire Industrial History Society). From the mid-1960s the Honorary Curator of the forge for over 40 years was

Ken Hawley Ken Hawley (born Kenneth Wybert Hawley, 29 June 1927 – 15 August 2014) was a British tool specialist and industrial historian: he was a tool retailer, collector of tools and authority on the history of Sheffield manufacturing trades. He amass ...

, who was the driving force behind a team of volunteer workers who preserved and restored the forge into its present condition – work that was recognised when he was appointed MBE in 1998. Of particular interest is that the site only ever used waterwheels to power the machinery. All three waterwheels have been restored to working order. Its buildings are used to house a variety of industrial machinery, including a

Marshall Marshall may refer to: Places Australia * Marshall, Victoria, a suburb of Geelong, Victoria Canada * Marshall, Saskatchewan * The Marshall, a mountain in British Columbia Liberia * Marshall, Liberia Marshall Islands * Marshall Islands, an i ...

twin-cylinder steam engine.

Heritage designations

The whole of the site is a Scheduled Monument and the main forge is a Grade I listed building. Top Forge Cottage, and two other cottages south of the forge, are listed separately at Grade II.

Heritage designations

See also

References

Further reading