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63-526: Ebbw Vale Steelworks was an integrated steel mill located in Ebbw Vale , South Wales . Developed from 1790, by the late 1930s it had become the largest steel mill in Europe. It was nationalised after World War II . As the steel industry changed to bulk handling, iron and steel making was ceased in the 1970s, and the site was redeveloped as a specialised tinplate works. It was closed by Corus in 2002, but

126-506: A blast furnace where the iron compounds in the ore give up excess oxygen and become liquid iron. At intervals of a few hours, the accumulated liquid iron is tapped from the blast furnace and either cast into pig iron or directed to other vessels for further steel making operations. Historically the Bessemer process was a major advancement in the production of economical steel, but it has now been entirely replaced by other processes such as

189-709: A rolling mill . Originally the minimill was adapted to production of bar products only, such as concrete reinforcing bar , flats, angles, channels, pipe, and light rails. Since the late 1980s, successful introduction of the direct strip casting process has made minimill production of strip feasible. Often a minimill will be constructed in an area with no other steel production, to take advantage of local markets, resources, or lower-cost labour. Minimill plants may specialize, for example, in making coils of rod for wire-drawing use, or pipe, or in special sections for transportation and agriculture. Capacities of minimills vary: some plants may make as much as 3,000,000 tons per year,

252-470: A Bessemer converter shop which produced the first steel ingots, including high carbon spiegel-eisen (mirror iron) . By 1929, a lack of investment had led to a low number of new orders. The oncoming economic depression led to the works being shut down; this resulted in huge redundancies, with minimal maintenance applied to the residual infrastructure. By 1934, unemployment in Ebbw Vale stood at 54% out of

315-510: A Quaker). Darby's son Abraham Darby the Younger was brought into the business as an assistant manager when old enough. The company's main business was producing cast-iron goods. Molten iron for this foundry work was not only produced from the blast furnaces, but also by remelting pig iron in air furnaces, a variant of the reverberatory furnace . The Company also became early suppliers of steam engine cylinders in this period. From 1720,

378-611: A cast-iron lintel bearing a date, which is currently painted as 1638, but an archive photograph has been found showing it as 1658. What ironworks existed at Coalbrookdale and from precisely what dates thus remains obscure. By 1688, the ironworks were operated by Lawrence Wellington, but a few years after the furnace was occupied by Shadrach Fox. He renewed the lease in 1696, letting the Great Forge and Plate Forge to Wellington. Some evidence may suggest that Shadrach Fox smelted iron with mineral coal, though this remains controversial. Fox

441-613: A continuous production campaign of several years duration. Even during periods of low steel demand, it may not be feasible to let the blast furnace grow cold, though some adjustment of the production rate is possible. Integrated mills are large facilities that are typically only economical to build in 2,000,000-ton per year annual capacity and up. Final products made by an integrated plant are usually large structural sections, heavy plate, strip, wire rod, railway rails , and occasionally long products such as bars and pipe . A major environmental hazard associated with integrated steel mills

504-463: A new company, Corus . Although investment had continued at the Ebbw Vale site over the past two decades, No.2 ETL(Electrolytic Tinning Line) was shut down in 1995, and rather than be redeveloped as planned had become a source of spares for the No.1 ETL. Steel production capacity was in excess of the required market in Europe, hence the need for the merger, which would result in the closure of capacity across

567-579: A population of 31,000. In 1935, the UK Government forced the shareholders of EVSICC to sell the site to tin plate manufacturer Richard Beaumont Thomas . He chose to import the UK's first continuous hot rolling mill from the United States , and totally redeveloped the site into a modern steelworks using this technology. Due to the quality of steel produced by the mill, Thomas effectively started

630-551: A regular basis, minimills can follow the market demand for their products easily, operating on 24-hour schedules when demand is high and cutting back production when sales are lower. Coalbrookdale Coalbrookdale is a town in the Ironbridge Gorge and the Telford and Wrekin borough of Shropshire , England, containing a settlement of great significance in the history of iron ore smelting. It lies within

693-457: A typical size is in the range 200,000 to 400,000 tons per year, and some old or specialty plants may make as little as 50,000 tons per year of finished product. Nucor Corporation , for example, annually produces around 9,100,000 tons of sheet steel from its four sheet mills, 6,700,000 tons of bar steel from its 10 bar mills and 2,100,000 tons of plate steel from its two plate mills. Since the electric arc furnace can be easily started and stopped on

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756-638: A £12 million refit. Originally constructed in 1915–1916, they were redeveloped as a visitor centre and archive. The original building now houses the Ebbw Vale Steelworks Archive Trust, a voluntary organisation which holds an historical record of steel making in Ebbw Vale, and a "4D" immersive cinema. A newly built wing houses the Gwent Archives , which were moved from Cwmbran , providing 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) of shelving to house thousands of documents which date back to

819-408: Is a viaduct carrying the railway that delivered coal to the now demolished Ironbridge Power Station . One of the two tracks is due to be taken over by Telford Steam Railway as part of its southern extension from Horsehay. The Museum's archaeology unit continues to investigate the earlier history of Coalbrookdale, and has recently excavated the remains of the 17th century cementation furnaces , near

882-581: Is being redeveloped in a joint partnership between Blaenau Gwent Council and the Welsh Government . By the mid to late 1700s, the steep-sided wooded valley of the Ebbw Fawr river was home to a population of around 120, who worked the valley as farmers. In 1789, Walter Watkins was the owner of a forge in Glangrwney , near Crickhowell , which lacked an adequate supply of pig iron from

945-552: Is lacking. He also acquired an interest in the patent for the cementation process of making steel in about 1615. Though forced to surrender the patent in 1619, he continued making iron and steel until his estate was sequestrated during the Civil War , but the works continued in use. In 1651, the manor was leased to Francis Wolfe, the clerk of the ironworks, and he and his son operated them as tenant of (or possibly manager for) Brooke's heirs. The surviving old blast furnace contains

1008-584: Is not strictly correct, but it was the first in Europe to operate successfully for more than a few years. Darby renewed his lease of the works in 1714, forming a new partnership with John Chamberlain and Thomas Baylies . They built a second furnace in about 1715, which was intended to be followed up with a furnace in Wales at Dolgûn near Dolgellau and in Cheshire taking over Vale Royal Furnace in 1718. However, Darby died prematurely at Madeley Court in 1717 –

1071-416: Is sometimes used with scrap, to help maintain desired chemistry of the steel, though usually DRI is too expensive to use as the primary raw steelmaking material. A typical mini-mill will have an electric arc furnace for scrap melting, a ladle furnace or vacuum furnace for precision control of chemistry, a strip or billet continuous caster for converting molten steel to solid form, a reheat furnace and

1134-640: Is the pollution produced in the manufacture of coke , which is an essential intermediate product in the reduction of iron ore in a blast furnace. Integrated mills may also adopt some of the processes used in mini-mills, such as arc furnaces and direct casting, to reduce production costs. A minimill is traditionally a secondary steel producer; however, Nucor (one of the world's largest steel producers) and Commercial Metals Company (CMC) use minimills exclusively. Usually it obtains most of its iron from scrap steel, recycled from used automobiles and equipment or byproducts of manufacturing. Direct reduced iron (DRI)

1197-489: The British Empire . Most occupations inside the steel works were considered reserved trades, so employees were able to opt out of the compulsory call-up for World War II military service. However, a number of men did decide to enlist, which resulted in some trades being worked throughout the war by women for the first time. The plant drew specific attention from German Luftwaffe bombers on more than one occasion, but

1260-786: The Clydach Ironworks . In agreement with two business partners, his son-in-law Charles Cracroft and iron master Jeremiah Homfray of the Penydarren Ironworks at Merthyr Tydfil , Watkins leased land at Pen y Cae farm in the parish of Aberystruth from John Miles. Situated on the northern tip of the South Wales coalfield and located next to the River Ebbw , they had easy access to the basic iron making materials: coal and iron ore obtained by 'patch' working and local drifts and levels, plus water and power from

1323-583: The Great Western Railway 's Ebbw Vale Line , now operated as a passenger-only service by Transport for Wales . After some commercial failures in the United States , in 1844 the Hardford's family trust sold the works to partners Abraham Darby , Henry Dickenson, Joseph Robinson and J Tothill of Coalbrookdale , with partner Thomas Brown designated managing director. This change started a period of expansion via acquisition, including: In 1850,

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1386-717: The Peacock Fountain in Christchurch , New Zealand. The blast furnaces were closed down, perhaps as early as the 1820s, but the foundries remained in use. The Coalbrookdale Company became part of an alliance of ironfounding companies called Light Castings Limited. This was absorbed by Allied Ironfounders Limited in 1929. This was in turn taken over by Glynwed which has since become Aga Foodservice. The Coalbrookdale foundry closed in November 2017. Several of Coalbrookdale's industrial heritage sites are to be found on

1449-434: The basic oxygen furnace . Molten steel is cast into large blocks called blooms . During the casting process various methods are used, such as addition of aluminum , so that impurities in the steel float to the surface where they can be cut off the finished bloom. Because of the energy cost and structural stress associated with heating and cooling a blast furnace, typically these primary steel making vessels will operate on

1512-464: The civil parish called the Gorge . This is where iron ore was first smelted by Abraham Darby using easily mined "coking coal". The coal was drawn from drift mines in the sides of the valley. As it contained far fewer impurities than normal coal, the iron it produced was of a superior quality. Along with many other industrial developments that were going on in other parts of the country, this discovery

1575-652: The hematite mine in the Forest of Dean, and spathic iron ore mines in the Brendon Hills and Spain. In June 1868, Darby converted the partnership into a limited company, the Ebbw Vale Steel, Iron and Coal Company (EVSICC), headquartered in Manchester . The capital injection allowed investment in the most powerful blowing engine in the world to serve four of the Ebbw Vale furnaces, new rolling mills and

1638-699: The 12th century. HM Queen Elizabeth II officially opened the General Offices as part of her Diamond Jubilee Tour on 3 May 2012, accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh . 51°46′12″N 3°12′3″W  /  51.77000°N 3.20083°W  / 51.77000; -3.20083 Steel mill Since the invention of the Bessemer process , steel mills have replaced ironworks , based on puddling or fining methods. New ways to produce steel appeared later: from scrap melted in an electric arc furnace and, more recently, from direct reduced iron processes. In

1701-495: The 1970s the industry had changed to one of sheer volume, with supplies drawn from vast mines and pits. If plants were remote from these, they required access to bulk material handling transport facilities, such as deep water ports. Ebbw Vale was neither located near such vast pits, nor bulk shipping facilities. When British Steel announced its 10-year integrated production plan for South Wales, it therefore proposed to stop iron and steel-making operations at Ebbw Vale, and to redevelop

1764-528: The Company began to produce the first cast-iron rails for railways . In 1778, Abraham Darby III undertook the building of the world's first cast-iron bridge, the iconic Iron Bridge , opened 1 January 1781. The fame of this bridge leads many people today to associate the iron-making part of the Industrial Revolution with the neighbouring village of Ironbridge , but in fact most of the work

1827-672: The Company in 1959. This became part of a larger project, the Ironbridge Gorge Museums . Its Museum of Iron is based in the Great Warehouse constructed in 1838 and Ironbridge Institute is based in the Long Warehouse, these two form the sides of an open space. On another side of which is the Old Blast Furnace, now under a building (erected in 1981) to protect it from the weather. The fourth side

1890-401: The Company operated a forge at Coalbrookdale but this was not profitable. In about 1754, renewed experiments took place with the application of coke pig iron to the production of bar iron in charcoal finery forges . This proved to be a success, and led to the partners building new furnaces at Horsehay and Ketley . This was the beginning of a great expansion in coke ironmaking. In 1767,

1953-547: The Iron Bridge, by William Reynolds and John Rose, producing Coalport porcelain. In 1802, the Coalbrookdale Company built a rail locomotive for Richard Trevethick , but little is known about it, including whether or not it actually ran. The death of a company workman in an accident involving the engine is said to have caused the company to not proceed to running it on their existing railway. To date,

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2016-421: The Iron Bridge. It is unclear whether the date on one of the lower ones should be 1638 (as it is now painted) or 1658 (as shown on an old photo). The interior profile of the furnace is typical of its period, bulging around the middle, below which the boshes taper in again so that the charge descends into a narrower and hotter hearth, where the iron was molten. When Abraham Darby III enlarged the furnace, he only made

2079-545: The Netherlands), while other plants were sold as a package to an Indian -based company. In July 2002, the Ebbw Vale steel works site closed; a skeleton staff deconstructed the remaining sold plants and handled shipping of residual finished product until December 2002. In 2002, Scottish site clearance and demolition contractors Morton assessed the site's land needs for future development. Demolition commenced in August, and

2142-474: The adjacent Little Wenlock belonged to Much Wenlock Priory . At the Dissolution there was a bloomsmithy called "Caldebroke Smithy". The manor passed about 1572 to John Brooke, who developed coal mining in his manor on a substantial scale. His son Sir Basil Brooke was a significant industrialist, and invested in ironworks elsewhere. It is probable that he also had ironworks at Coalbrookdale, but evidence

2205-444: The boshes wider on the front and left sides, but not on the right where doing so would have entailed moving the water wheel. The mouth of the furnace is thus off-centre. Iron was now being made in large quantities for many customers. In the 1720s and 1730s, its main products were cast-iron cooking pots, kettles and other domestic articles. It also cast the cylinders for steam engines , and pig iron for use by other foundries . In

2268-564: The company to produce the world's first rolled-steel rail tracks in 1857, later followed by the pioneering Liverpool & Manchester and the Stockton & Darlington Railway . The new railway line contracts required additional integration across the production facilities. By the end of the 18th century, both the company and the Tredegar Iron Company needed to transport raw materials to and products from various ironworks in

2331-595: The company's chemist George Parry achieved a great economy in blast furnace practice, becoming the first to adopt the cup and cone successfully on blast furnaces. He then conducted experiments in converting iron into steel , but the company was eventually forced to adopt the patented process of Henry Bessemer . By 1863, the company was producing 100,000 tons of rail and merchant bars per annum, from 19 blast furnaces, 192 puddling furnaces, and 99 heating furnaces located at Ebbw Vale, Sirhowy, Victoria, Abersychan , Pontypool and Abercarn . It also had six wharfs at Newport Docks,

2394-526: The deep valley proved difficult to bomb and the plant survived. In 1948, two of the country's largest steel companies – Richard Thomas, which had plants in Ebbw Vale , Gloucester and the Forest of Dean , and Baldwins, with plants in Stourport and South Wales – agreed to a merger. The new company, Richard Thomas and Baldwins (RTB), became the UK's largest steel maker by volume. In 1948, RTB introduced

2457-534: The development of a £15 million urban village scheme close to the town, which would house a new railway station and elevated access to the main town. The first part of the scheme, Ysbyty Aneurin Bevan , opened in 2010; it was Wales' first all-individual-bed hospital, named after National Health Service founder Aneurin Bevan . In October 2011, the Grade II listed former Steelworks General Offices were reopened after

2520-410: The development of which started in 1974 with the commissioning of a newly built hydrochloric acid pickle line. With staff redeployed to the developing tinplate plant, on 17 July 1975 both the converter shop and all remaining blast furnaces closed, having produced 16,916,523 tons of iron. The continuous hot strip mill ceased operation on 29 September 1977, having rolled 23 million tons of steel since it

2583-424: The first Abraham Darby rebuilt Coalbrookdale Furnace, and eventually used coke as his fuel. His business was that of an ironfounder, making cast-iron pots and other goods, an activity in which he was particularly successful because of his patented foundry method, which enabled him to produce cheaper pots than his rivals. Coalbrookdale has been claimed as the home of the world's first coke-fired blast furnace ; this

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2646-515: The first continuous tinning line at its Ebbw Vale tinplate works. In 1951, RTB was nationalised and placed under the Iron and Steel Corporation of Great Britain . Under Conservative rule in 1953, it passed to the Iron and Steel Holding and Realisation Agency in readiness for privatisation. However, its size – it was the UK's largest steel company – inhibited its sale. It was still in public ownership when

2709-478: The industry was re-nationalised under British Steel Corporation in 1967. The steelworks was nationalised as part of British Steel in 1967, becoming part of the South Wales group alongside Llanwern and Port Talbot Steelworks . By this time, 14,500 people were employed in the works in and around Ebbw Vale. The original choice for the site was due to its co-location with both iron ore and coal. However, by

2772-401: The land was remediated over a period of approximately five years. In 2005, Corus sold the site to Blaenau Gwent Council . In 2007, a £350 million regeneration project was jointly announced by the council and the Welsh Government . Outline planning permission was granted for a mixed use redevelopment, including housing, retail, offices, wetlands and a learning campus. The council proposed

2835-461: The late 18th century, it sometimes produced structural ironwork, including for Buildwas Bridge. This was built in 1795, 2 miles up the river from the original Ironbridge. Due to advances in technology, it used only half as much cast iron despite being 30 feet (9 m) wider than the Ironbridge. The year after that, in 1796, Thomas Telford began a new project, Longdon-on-Tern Aqueduct . It carried

2898-673: The late 19th and early 20th centuries the world's largest steel mill was the Barrow Hematite Steel Company steelworks located in Barrow-in-Furness , United Kingdom . Today, the world's largest steel mill is in Gwangyang , South Korea . An integrated steel mill has all the functions for primary steel production: The principal raw materials for an integrated mill are iron ore, limestone, and coal (or coke). These materials are charged in batches into

2961-640: The local trail: including: Coalbrookdale railway station , the Quaker Burial Ground, the Darby Houses, Tea Kettle Row and the Great Western Railway Viaduct. In the century after the Old Blast Furnace closed, it became buried. There was a proposal for the site to be cleared and the furnace dismantled, but instead, it was decided to excavate and preserve it. It and a small museum were opened to celebrate 250 years of

3024-575: The locomotive ran on a plateway with a track gauge of 3 ft ( 914 mm ). This was two years before Trevethick's first engine to tow a train was run at Penydarren in south Wales. In the 19th century, Coalbrookdale was noted for its decorative ironwork. It is here (for example) that the gates of London's Hyde Park were built. Other examples include the Coalbrookdale verandah at St John's in Monmouth , Wales, and as far away as

3087-460: The newly integrated company. With much tinplate consumption moving to the newly expanding Asian market, on 1 February 2001 Corus announced the complete closure of the Ebbw Vale site, and the resultant loss of 780 jobs. The plant began a shut-down procedure, with many of the lines within the plant packaged up and transported to other sites in the Corus company ( Trostre near Llanelli, and IJmuiden in

3150-488: The only known information about it comes from a drawing preserved at the Science Museum, London , together with a letter written by Trevithick to his friend Davies Giddy . The design incorporated a single horizontal cylinder enclosed in a return-flue boiler . A flywheel drove the wheels on one side through spur gears , and the axles were mounted directly on the boiler, with no frame. The drawing indicates that

3213-606: The plant was officially opened in June 1978 by Derek Hornby, the President of the Food Manufacturing Federation . It was envisaged in the original plan that a third phase would be constructed to double production again, but the government did not authorise these plans. By 1981, demolition and clearance of the former iron and steel plants was completed, and the southern boundary of the residual tinplate works

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3276-428: The redevelopment of the entire UK steel industry, with the mill producing hot rolled coils instead of bars, billets and plates. Two and a half years later, production at the site restarted. This drew former steelworkers back to the valley, and by 1948 the plant was the largest in Europe, producing 600,000 tons of rolled steel annually. A lack of manpower drew in migrant workers from all over devastated post-war Europe and

3339-501: The river. Limestone was to be transported by mule train from Llanelly Quarries, about four miles away. The partnership erected a blast furnace and casting shop against the hillside, which created a weekly output of 25 tons of pig iron per week. Called "Pen y cae" after the farming hamlet by the locals, the partners adopted the river's name to form the Ebbw Vale Furnace Company Ltd (EVC), hence naming both

3402-440: The same year as he began the house Dale End which became home to succeeding generations of the family in Coalbrookdale – followed quickly by his widow Mary. The partnership was dissolved before Mary's death, Baylies taking over Vale Royal. After Mary's death, Baylies had difficulty extracting his capital. The works then passed to a company led by his fellow Quaker Thomas Goldney II of Bristol and managed by Richard Ford (also

3465-468: The site as a specialist tinplate manufacturer. The closure of the coke ovens in March 1972 allowed work to commence on removing the 19th century "drill ground" tip, which contained 500,000 tons of waste material. Once the waste removal was complete, the site was back-filled, allowing the cold rolling mill to be extended. This was now able to supply sufficient capacity of rolled steel to a new tinplate complex,

3528-515: The site of the Upper (formerly Middle) Forge . The Old Furnace began life as a typical blast furnace, but went over to coke in 1709. Abraham Darby I used it to cast pots, kettles and other goods. His grandson Abraham Darby III smelted the iron here for the first Ironbridge , the world's first iron bridge. The lintels of the furnace bear dated inscriptions. The uppermost reads "Abraham Darby 1777", probably recording its enlargement for casting

3591-683: The upper Ebbw Valley, to Newport Docks . Developments included: By 1805, a 24-mile (39 km) stretch of tramline had been laid to transport coal and iron ore to Newport Docks, laid jointly by Tredegar Iron Company and the Monmouthshire Canal Company. Pulled by teams of horses, in 1829 Chief Engineer Thomas Ellis was authorised to purchase a steam locomotive from the Stephenson Company. Built at Tredegar Works, it made its maiden trip on 17 December 1829. On grouping in 1923, all of these railway lines became part of

3654-683: The works and the developing township. In 1793 Homfray bought out his partners with help from the Bristol -based Quaker family the Harfords, who in 1796 bought out Homfray himself to take complete ownership. The plant was developed as a specialist forge. Needing additional supplies of iron, the company, now owned by the Harfords family trust, bought and integrated the Sirhowy Ironworks and colliery. The company then built four new cupola furnaces and added steam engine power. This allowed

3717-812: Was a major factor in the growing industrialisation of Britain, which was to become known as the Industrial Revolution . Today, Coalbrookdale is home to the Ironbridge Institute , a partnership between the University of Birmingham and the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust offering postgraduate and professional development courses in heritage . Before the Dissolution of the Monasteries , Madeley and

3780-475: Was commissioned in 1937. Having slabbed 24 million tons of steel, the final cast was made in the open hearth department in May 1978. Demolition and clearance of these plants allowed the second phase of the tinplate works to begin. This included new constructions of an effluent plant, single stack annealing line, two electrolytic tinning lines (ETL), a cleaning line, and a Hallden Shears plant. Having cost £57 million,

3843-412: Was done at Coalbrookdale, as there was no settlement at Ironbridge in the eighteenth century. Expansion of Coalbrookdale's industrial facilities continued, with the development of sophisticated ponds and culverts to provide water power, and even Resolution , a water-returning beam engine to recirculate this water. In 1795, the first porcelain factory near Coalbrookdale was founded at Coalport, east of

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3906-570: Was evidently an iron founder , as he supplied round shot and grenade shells to the Board of Ordnance during the Nine Years War , but not later than April 1703, the furnace blew up. It remained derelict until the arrival of Abraham Darby the Elder in 1709. However the forges remained in use. A brass works was built sometime before 1712 (possibly as early as 1706), but closed in 1714. In 1709,

3969-464: Was moved inwards. It was on this part of the site that Blaenau Gwent Borough Council approved a bid for the 1992 National Garden Festival , awarded to the council and site in November 1988. It was billed as Garden Festival Wales and attracted over 2 million visitors to South Wales. On 6 October 1999, a merger was announced between the Dutch steel company Koninklijke Hoogovens and British Steel to form

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