The Elsecar Ironworks opened in 1795 in the village of Elsecar near Barnsley, South Yorkshire. The company was bankrupted in 1827 and taken over by the Wentworth estate who owned the land it stood on. The buildings are now part of the Elsecar Heritage Centre.
Elsecar has been a mainly agricultural village situated on the Wentworth estate of Earl Fitzwilliam. There had been localised coal and iron mining on the edges of the village since the 14th century.
The Ironworks opened in 1795 on a site near the head of the Elsecar Branch of the Dearne and Dove Canal. The canal, opened to service the coal mines, was extended a short distance to a new basin nearer the ironworks. The works made pig iron from locally mined ores as well as a range of cast iron products, mostly for the construction trades.
A little further away, atop the hill to the west, was built the Milton Ironworks, working in the same market place as its rival. This was also connected to the canal basin, but this time by a tramway, believed to be at a gauge less than Standard Gauge, the rails being set on stone blocks.
Elsecar Ironworks went into bankruptcy in 1827, and as it was situated on lands leased from the Wentworth estate it was these who took them over.
From its opening in February 1850 the works and collieries were connected to the Elsecar Branch of the South Yorkshire Railway giving easy access to the wharves on the River Trent at Keadby. In due time this enabled the companies to obtain ironstone from the Scunthorpe fields, which were rediscovered in 1859.
The site of the ironworks is today part of the Elsecar Heritage Centre. The Elsecar Steam Railway operates from a station within the centre along part of the South Yorkshire Railway's Elsecar branch, towards Cortonwood.
Some of the buildings, which were the National Coal Board workshops still stand and contain ironwork made in Elsecar.
Elsecar is a village in the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley in South Yorkshire, England. It is near the villages of Jump and Wentworth and 1.5 miles (2.4 km) south of the town of Hoyland, 6 miles (9.7 km) south of Barnsley and 8 miles (13 km) north-east of Sheffield. Elsecar falls within the Barnsley MBC Ward of Hoyland Milton. Like many villages in the area, it was for many years a colliery village until the widespread pit closures during the 1980s.
The Dearne and Dove Canal ran for almost ten miles through South Yorkshire, England from Swinton to Barnsley through nineteen locks, rising 127 feet (39 m). The canal also had two short branches, the Worsbrough branch and the Elsecar branch, both about two miles long with reservoirs at the head of each. The Elsecar branch also has another six locks. The only tunnel was bypassed by a cutting in 1840.
The Elsecar Heritage Railway (EHR) is located on the southern part of the former South Yorkshire Railway freight-only branch which ran from Elsecar Junction on its Mexborough to Barnsley Line.
The Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal is a small network of canals in South Wales. For most of its currently (2018) navigable 35-mile (56 km) length it runs through the Brecon Beacons National Park, and its present rural character and tranquillity belies its original purpose as an industrial corridor for coal and iron, which were brought to the canal by a network of tramways and/or railroads, many of which were built and owned by the canal company.
Elsecar Heritage Centre is a living history centre in Elsecar, Barnsley, England. It covers the industrial history of the area, and includes a Newcomen steam engine, the only such engine still in its original location.
East Bowling is an area of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England located to the south of Bradford city centre. It forms the eastern half of the historic township and manor of Bowling. Bowling became a ward of the newly created Borough of Bradford in 1847. In 1882 the ward was split into the wards of East and West Bowling. In the north the boundary was along the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway. To the south it was along Hall Lane and Bolling Hall Lane.
Caphouse Colliery, originally known as Overton Colliery, was a coal mine in Overton, near Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England. It was situated on the Denby Grange estate owned by the Lister Kaye family, and was worked from the 18th century until 1985. It reopened as the Yorkshire Mining Museum in 1988, and is now the National Coal Mining Museum for England.
Earl Fitzwilliam's private railway station is a former private railway station in South Yorkshire, England, situated at the upper end of the Elsecar branch of the South Yorkshire Railway.
New Stubbin Colliery was a coal mine situated in the township of Rawmarsh near Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England. The colliery was situated in a deep valley. Along one side at the top of the valley runs Haugh Road, Rawmarsh and on the other a lane known locally as “Greasbrough Tops”.
The Polloc and Govan Railway was an early mineral railway near Glasgow in Scotland, constructed to bring coal and iron from William Dixon's collieries and ironworks to the River Clyde for onward transportation.
Tinsley Park Collieries were a group of coal mines situated in the Tinsley / Darnall area to the east of the City of Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England.
The Elsecar Collieries were the coal mines sunk in and around Elsecar, a small village to the south of Barnsley in what is now South Yorkshire, but was traditionally in the West Riding of Yorkshire.
The South Yorkshire Coalfield is so named from its position within Yorkshire. It covers most of South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire and a small part of North Yorkshire. The exposed coalfield outcrops in the Pennine foothills and dips under Permian rocks in the east. Its most famous coal seam is the Barnsley Bed. Coal has been mined from shallow seams and outcrops since medieval times and possibly earlier.
The Milton Ironworks was an iron works established in the 19th century in the Elsecar area of Barnsley, West Yorkshire, England.
The Bullo Pill Railway was an early British railway, completed in 1810 to carry coal mined in the Forest of Dean Coalfield to a port on the River Severn near Newnham, Gloucestershire. It was later converted to a broad gauge steam line by the Great Western Railway, and was closed in the 1960s.
Elsecar goods station was a goods facility constructed near the village of Elsecar, near Barnsley, South Yorkshire, at the terminus of the South Yorkshire Railways branch line from Elsecar Junction on its Mexborough to Barnsley line. The total length of the line was 2 miles 1204 yards.
The Low Moor Ironworks was a wrought iron foundry established in 1791 in the village of Low Moor about 3 miles (4.8 km) south of Bradford in Yorkshire, England. The works were built to exploit the high-quality iron ore and low-sulphur coal found in the area. Low Moor made wrought iron products from 1801 until 1957 for export around the world. At one time it was the largest ironworks in Yorkshire, a major complex of mines, piles of coal and ore, kilns, blast furnaces, forges and slag heaps connected by railway lines. The surrounding countryside was littered with waste, and smoke from the furnaces and machinery blackened the sky. Today Low Moor is still industrial, but the pollution has been mostly eliminated.
The Earl of Dudley’s Railway or Pensnett Railway, was a 4 ft 8+1⁄2 instandard gauge railway that developed from a single 3-mile (4.8 km) line opened in 1829 to, at its maximum extent, a 40-mile (64 km) long network around the Earl of Dudley’s Iron Works at Round Oak near Brierley Hill.
The Silkstone Waggonway was a narrow-gauge industrial wagonway serving the Barnsley Canal, in England, at Silkstone in South Yorkshire.
Hoyland Milton is a ward in the metropolitan borough of Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England. The ward contains 35 listed buildings that are recorded in the National Heritage List for England. Of these, eleven are listed at Grade II*, the middle of the three grades, and the others are at Grade II, the lowest grade. The ward contains the villages of Elsecar and Hemingfield and the surrounding area. Elsecar is located beside former industrial enterprises, including collieries and the Elsecar Ironworks. A high proportion of the listed buildings are associated with the ironworks, which have since been used for other purposes, some of the buildings forming the basis for the Elsecar Heritage Centre. The Elsecar branch of the Dearne and Dove Canal, now disused, passes through the ward, and two structures associated with it are listed, a canal basin and a bridge. The other listed buildings in the village include houses and cottages, a church, a school, a market hall later used as an assembly hall, and a former flour mill. Associated with the collieries are a former pumping engine house, and the entrance to a coal mine. Outside the village are listed farmhouses and farm buildings.
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