• Welcome to this forum . We are a worldwide group with a common interest in Birmingham and its history. While here, please follow a few simple rules. We ask that you respect other members, thank those who have helped you and please keep your contributions on-topic with the thread.

    We do hope you enjoy your visit. BHF Admin Team

Hawksley Mill

  • Thread starter Thread starter Malcog
  • Start date Start date
M

Malcog

Guest
A few years ago my son was exploring the stream at the back of the Daffodil Park behind the old Kalamazoo works in Northfield and he said he found big lumps of iron. I went along to see this and there were large pieces (several tons) of iron slag in the bed of the stream that runs alongside the railway. I looked in Northfield library and the internet for any mentions of iron/steel working on the upper Rea but found nothing. However, there is a Steel Road running down to Mill Lane, so maybe that is an indicator of some sort of metalworking.
Does anyone have any information of iron or steem making in this part of Northfield ?
 
I had never heard of this type of industry in Northfield , maybe at the begining of the industrial revolution, small industry set anywhere there was water and ore, maybe in the early mid 18th centary.
paul
 
Where you describe is near to where Hawkseley mill was. This ,however, to my knowledge was always a corn mill. I have never heard of ironworking around there. Would be interested if anyone has anything to prove otherwise. As Bill Parker says, slag was often used ffor roadmaking.
Mike
 
Walking along Mill Lane, looking at the low walls of the front gardens many of the stones are furnace slag, that can only have come from ironmaking. So where did this furnace slag come from ? Mill Lane pre-dates the Longbride works, but I think the houses were built in the 1930s, I don't know if there was a blast furnace at Longbridge.
 
Might there have been an Iron foundry in the area? The Cupola furnace, a type of blast furnace, would over a period of time produce plenty of slag. I have mentioned previously its quite useful stuff as hardcore, it may well have been transported into the area. The Austin Works had a foundry but I do not know when they first opened it.
 
I don't know about iron foundry's in this area but if you look at the map ref pre 1890 it shows the Rea...lower stream just above the railway and this is banked and sluiced to a leat above it which leads water to the mill shown. The Rea then ducks under the railway (mill stream was there before the railway) and goes over a waterfall seemingly which is convenient if a natural feature...head without digging. Anyway the leat diverts water over the mill wheel and the tailrace delivers the water back to the Rea below the waterfall. That being said...I was thinking that the sluices may have been in the location that you report and may have had iron mechanisms or gates of sorts. Also cinders and slag was used in cement mixtures...blocks also and could have been made at a brick yard elsware and the furnace may not have been right there. Posibly there might also have been an iron bridge structure there. An interesting find.

Ref. https://www.british-history.ac.uk/m...etid=9256&ox=790&oy=950&zm=1&czm=1&x=318&y=60

There are sluices above Hawkesley mill too which may be closer to the spot. The leat would have run through what is now allotments on south side of the railway. It might have been banked up or piped even to maintain the level of the water above the weir that would have been constructed prior to the sluices.

Ref. https://www.british-history.ac.uk/m...id=9256&ox=325&oy=1262&zm=1&czm=1&x=346&y=134
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top