A coke fired furnace at Cinderford was built by Thomas
Teague some time round about 1795. It was situated at a place known as the
Daniel ford on the brook just half a mile north of Cinderford Bridge. It used coke
brought down from Broadmoor by a small short canal. The furnace fell idle
around 1890, unable to compete with the higher production of South Wales and
Staffordshire because of poor quality local coking coal.
In 1829, the furnace was restarted by Moses Teague, who with William
Montague of Gloucester formed the Cinderford Iron Company and smelting
operations were revived. The company was later taken over by William Allaway
and the south Wales ironmaster William Crawshay in 1835. In 1841 there were
three furnaces producing over 12,000 tons of iron a year and employing over
100 men and boys.
Crawshay’s son Henry ran the works from 1847. In the mid 1850’s the works
always had three of its four furnaces in production but only one was in blast in
1890 and the ironworks finally closed to be demolished by 1900.
Until a few decades ago the "Valley Road" area of the Cinderford valley was littered with giant cinders, the skimmings and left overs from the iron foundry firings. It was common, as this photograph shows, for sheep to graze amongst these garden shed to house-sized lumps of leftovers from the ironworks.
A coke fired furnace at Cinderford was built by Thomas
Teague some time round about 1795. It was situated at a place known as the
Daniel ford on the brook just half a mile north of Cinderford Bridge. It used coke
brought down from Broadmoor by a small short canal. The furnace fell idle
around 1890, unable to compete with the higher production of South Wales and
Staffordshire because of poor quality local coking coal.
In 1829, the furnace was restarted by Moses Teague, who with William
Montague of Gloucester formed the Cinderford Iron Company and smelting
operations were revived. The company was later taken over by William Allaway
and the south Wales ironmaster William Crawshay in 1835. In 1841 there were
three furnaces producing over 12,000 tons of iron a year and employing over
100 men and boys.
Crawshay’s son Henry ran the works from 1847. In the mid 1850’s the works
always had three of its four furnaces in production but only one was in blast in
1890 and the ironworks finally closed to be demolished by 1900.