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 About SLHA Library 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
 Marshall Class LT Tandem Compound Steam Engine
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 Factory This 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. Wymondham Navvy House The Navvy House at Wymondham is one of a number of similar houses built in c1890 by the contractors for the Midland Railway for the construction of the line between Saxby and Bourne. Contracts were let and work began in October 1890. The Wymondham house would have been constructed for Holme and King, the contractor for the railway between Saxby and a point between Wymondham and South Witham. It is the only survivor of several such structures in Castle Bytham, South Witham and Wymondham. An extract from the Midland Railway plans shows the existing Station House, marked as ‘S M Ho’, on the north side of the line with the existing Navvy House next west in the centre and the demolished Navvy House to the extreme west. The house is a Grade II Listed Building, having been Listed on 13 January 1988 with a subsequent list amendment of 17 October 2007. History By the late C19 and following action by Parliament navvy housing was of a standard much improved over earlier years. Although considered to be temporary buildings, they provided a good standard of accommodation compared with some rural housing. Internally there were three rooms with two of them being heated. At one end was the smallest room, for occupation by a married man and his family. This and the central room were separated by the chimney with fireplace on both sides. The central and other end room were of an equal size. The centre was a communal living and dining room with the unheated end being a dormitory. The wife would be paid by the lodgers for cleaning, cooking and washing. Of the nine huts in Wymondham, in the 1891 Census one was occupied by nine people, two by ten, one by 11, one by 12, two by 13 and two by 14. Of the pair of which the survivor is one, one was occupied by 13 people the other by 14. One had a Foreman of Works, his wife and six daughters, together with six Railway Labourers, the latter all lodgers. The other had a Railway Labourer, his wife, described as a Cook, two Railway Labourer sons, a daughter described as a Laundress, and eight lodgers. One of these was an Engine Driver, two Engine Cleaners and five Railway Labourers. Most were demolished after the line opened in 1893 but five examples at Little Bytham, one pair at South Witham and two at Wymondham, were retained and used as staff accommodation. They are all shown on the County Series, 1;2500 Second Edition maps. Those at South Witham were demolished on 13 October 1954. Those at Little Bytham had all been demolished by the early 1970’s. One of the surviving pair at Wymondham was demolished in 1993. The local authority, Melton Borough Council, and the owner were not informed of the listing at the time because the paperwork had been sent to Wymondham in Norfolk. One of the pair at Wymondham was lived in until the1950’s. The survivor does have the remnants of domestic wallpaper on its walls. Oral recollection is that it was regarded locally as rather shameful to live in what was by the 1950’s a substandard dwelling and it was occupied until 1956. An assessment has been made in an effort to establish if the vertical timber cladding to the exterior is original. Surviving photographs of that at Broadgate Lane, South Witham, show it to have had horizontal boarding. However, there was a different contractor employed here, JD Nowell, and he may have clad the huts he provided in a different manner. SWA Newton’s photographs of Navvy housing for the construction of the Great Central Railway in the period 1894-99 show the use of both horizontal and vertical cladding although where the latter is used it is plain, flat boarding rather than with the relief found at Wymondham. So, the results are inconclusive but it is clear that the existing boards do have considerable age and, thus, may well be original. Significance That the building has architectural and historic interest is not disputed. The Heritage Gateway entry refers to it being a rare and almost intact example of its type and that it may be the only surviving example in England. There is one other similar building, at Dent Station in Cumbria on the Settle to Carlisle line, also built by the Midland Railway in the period 1866 to 1875. It is also a Grade II Listed Building. Once almost derelict, this has now been repaired. It now provides for holiday accommodation, see www.dentstation.co.uk/snowhuts_interior.php. The website describes it as having been built in 1885 as a lineside shelter for railway workers, the name Snow Hut derived from its use for workers in winter keeping the line running at times of heavy snowfall. The listing description for this building states that it was a dormitory for Navvies with an office at one end. It also has walls of stone which made it of more permanent construction. Indeed, in such an isolated spot, and being sited at the highest railway station in England, it may have been purposely built to more permanent than that at Wymondham. The list description does also state that the building is a rare survival and that other examples have been substantially altered. No other examples have been listed. The conclusion to be drawn from this is that the Wymondham Navvy house is unique, both in terms of its survival and relatively unaltered state. It is, therefore, a very important building in a national context. |