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About SLHA Publications Local History Archaeology Industrial Archaeology Society for Lincolnshire History and Archaeology |
Industrial Archaeology FeaturesBarton on Humber Barton-on-Humber Ropeworks plaque  Ropeworks from the north  Humber Bridge from south bank The area on the south bank of the River Humber in which Barton-on-Humber sits was occupied from the earliest times. The Humber was a major supply route to York during the Roman occupation. By the time of Domesday there was a church, two mills, a market and a ferry. Barton developed around what is now Barton Haven. In medieval times Barton was a major port particularly in the Baltic trade. There was shipbuilding on Barton Haven into the twentieth century. On either side of the Haven the Humber bank clays are ideal for brick and tile making. At the peak at the end of the nineteenth century there were thirteen brickyards in Barton parish. Today there is only one. Alongside the Haven was Hall’s Barton Ropery, whose origin can be traced to the late eighteenth century. Ropes continued to be made here until 1988. Today the building has several new uses, including a rope making museum, and boasts the longest pantiled roof in the country. Overlooking the Haven is the Humber Bridge opened in 1981 which can be viewed from the nearby visitor centre. The hills surrounding the town are Cretaceous chalk. These are still quarried for the cement works at South Ferriby. Surviving in the centre of Barton is the Old Mill which was built to manufacture whiting. It lost its sails in 1868 and by the 1980s was derelict. It was restored in 1990 and now is a pub and restaurant with some of the mill machinery still to be seen in the tower.
Ken Hollamby Owston Ferry Pumping Station Owston Ferry Pumping Station Owston Ferry, on the west bank of the Trent, lies on the edge of the historic Isle of Axholme, a large area a little above sea level. Widescale drainage was first achieved here in the seventeenth century by lifting water from the land into the embanked Trent using wind-powered pumps. In the early twentieth century the pumping station was equipped with two Marshall L-Class double-expansion steam engines driving Drysdale pumps to drain approx 5000 acres. One engine was replaced in 1952 by a Ruston and Hornsby 8HRC diesel engine and later a 3-cylinder Lister-Blackstone engine was installed. The remaining steam engine is believed not to have run since 1963.
 Marshall Class LT Tandem Compound Steam Engine The Owston Ferry Pumping Station Preservation Society has recently been set up to preserve and interpret the station and its machinery. Their second of their journals has just been issued. For further details about membership contact Paul Gammons, 35 North Street, Owston Ferry, Isle of Axholme, DN9 1RT, email jpgammons@btinternet.com. The society has a blog: ofpeps.blogspot.com
Scunthorpe Like Arnold Bennett’s Stoke, modern Scunthorpe comprises five villages: Ashby, Brumby, Crosby, Frodingham and Scunthorpe. Scunthorpe or Skuma’s Thorpe was once a secondary settlement of the Parish of Frodingham. In 1851 the total population of the five agricultural settlements was 1,245 and there was little to choose between them. They were geologically fortunate for they developed over the Jurassic Frodingham ironstone. The first mention of iron ore was in 1859 by the land owner Charles Winn. His son Roland recognised the economic importance of the ore and started mining it in 1860. Until the first iron works in Scunthorpe was fired in 1864 the ore was shipped to Yorkshire for smelting. In the succeeding century the industry developed and adapted as steel technology progressed and today it is a major processing site for Corus the Anglo-Dutch steel company. As new plants were built the old ones were demolished but the Anchor Works built in the 1970s can be seen from the public road, and rails tours of the complex can be booked. A survivor from the early days is Roland Winn’s planned settlement built in 1865-1870 at New Frodingham; although his workers preferred Scunthorpe, half a mile to the north.  Winn Street, New Frodingham
Ken Hollamby
Boyall's Brownlow Works Showroom, Grantham Now the Grantham branch sales office and showroom of a national chain of builders' merchants, this delightful memento of a bygone Victorian industry was once the centrepiece of an extensive factory complex devoted to the manufacture of a wide variety of horse-drawn vehicles and their accessories. These ranged from the utilitarian to the elegant, from bespoke carriages 'for the nobility' to the quality production of such hardware as artillery wheels. Richard Boyall's Brownlow Works occupied a prestigious site close to one of the county's principal railway junctions and thrived in late Victorian times until its products' motive power was superceded by the internal combustion engine.  The Factory Bell In the builders' yard can still be seen traces of the former work base, including the works' bell and forge chimneys, but pride of place goes to the former showroom building which has survived more or less intact until the present day. Escaping demolition at the time when Boyall's went out of business in pre-WW1 times, this building has seen many changes of use. From time to time it has been a cinema, a dance hall, an ice rink and roller skating hall, a distribution centre for dairy equipment as well as enduring periods of near dereliction. It is now carefully restored and well respected by its owners. Peter Stevenson Torksey Railway Bridge The railway bridge at Torksey over the Trent was designed by Sir John Fowler in 1849 for the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway. It is one of the country's first examples of a tubular girder bridge. (Fowler later went on to build the famous Forth Rail Bridge with Benjamin Baker.) At first the MSLR Board mistrusted the design, and permission to use the bridge was refused, but after 4 months of arguing it finally opened to rail traffic in April 1850. The girders were strengthened in 1897 and the bridge was used regularly until 1959 when the line was closed. A grade 2* listed structure, it is now under consideration for use as part of a Sustrans cycle route Boston Feather FactoryThis very decorative factory building has now been converted to apartments, but it was originally built for the processing of feathers for pillow cases. Geese had been kept on the local fens for centuries, and their feathers were plucked twice a year and purified by heat in factories like this before being used to stuff the pillows of the rich. At one time there were half a dozen such factories in the Lincolnshire fens and this is the last surviving Victorian building of that industry. The first feather factory on the site burnt down and this building was put up in its place in 1877. It was erected by F S Anderson & Co., and very unusually for Victorian times this company was named after a woman. The Anderson family had been in the feather business for many years and by the time the factory was rebuilt the widowed Mrs Frances Susannah Anderson had succeeded her husband as head of the firm. The feather factory continued in use until the middle of the 20th century and was latterly run by Fogarty & Co. who now operate from larger premises on the edge of Boston. |