An iron railing is a fence made of iron. This may either be wrought iron, which is ductile and durable and may be hammered into elaborate shapes when hot, or the cheaper cast iron, which is of low ductility and quite brittle. Cast iron can also produce complicated shapes, but these are created through the use of moulds of compressed sand rather than hammering, which would be likely to damage the iron. [1]
One of the earliest uses of cast iron railings in England was in 1710–14 at St Paul's Cathedral, despite the objections of Christopher Wren, who did not want a fence around the Cathedral at all, and said that if there had to be one it should be of wrought rather than cast iron. [2] The set was made at Gloucester Furnace, Lamberhurst, [3] in the Weald of Kent and surrounded the cathedral, including seven gates. It weighed two hundred tons and cost six pence a pound. [2] The total cost was £11,202 [2] which was a fortune then. No further railings are known to have been cast in the Weald. [4] Other early uses of cast iron railings were at Cambridge Senate House and at St Martin-in-the-Fields, London. [2]
Wrought iron may be used to construct ornate railings. The Davies brothers of Wrexham made such railings in the 18th century and these are much admired — Nikolaus Pevsner described their work as "miraculous". [5] They made fine wrought iron railings for Stansty Park and these may now be seen at Erddig Hall. [6]
During World War II, many sets of iron railings in Britain were removed. Railings were usually cut off at the base; the stubs may still be seen outside many buildings in London and elsewhere where they have never been replaced. This was supposedly to provide scrap metal for munitions, but there is some scepticism as to whether they were actually used for this purpose. [7]
In 2012 artist Catalina Pollak created an interactive sound installation called Phantom Railings in Malet Street Gardens, London, the site of railings that were removed during World War II. Acoustic sensors pick up the movement of pedestrians walking by and translate it into "the familiar sound produced by running a stick along an iron fence". [8] [9]
In the county of Cheshire, hedging at road junctions and corners was replaced by black-and-white railings with a distinctive curved top. They are now characteristic of the area and are being restored where they have become dilapidated. [10]
Stewart Iron Works in Covington, Kentucky was once the largest wrought iron fence manufacturer in the world. [11] [12] The factory supplied the decorative fences for the Panama Canal, the British Embassy in Washington, D.C., the Taft Museum, [13] as well as the entrance gates to the White House, the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center, and the U.S. House of Representatives and others.
Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content in contrast to that of cast iron. It is a semi-fused mass of iron with fibrous slag inclusions, which give it a wood-like "grain" that is visible when it is etched, rusted, or bent to failure. Wrought iron is tough, malleable, ductile, corrosion resistant, and easily forge welded, but is more difficult to weld electrically.
A blacksmith is a metalsmith who creates objects primarily from wrought iron or steel, but sometimes from other metals, by forging the metal, using tools to hammer, bend, and cut. Blacksmiths produce objects such as gates, grilles, railings, light fixtures, furniture, sculpture, tools, agricultural implements, decorative and religious items, cooking utensils, and weapons. There was an historical distinction between the heavy work of the blacksmith and the more delicate operation of a whitesmith, who usually worked in gold, silver, pewter, or the finishing steps of fine steel. The place where a blacksmith works is called variously a smithy, a forge or a blacksmith's shop.
John Oldrid Scott was a British architect.
The Wealden iron industry was located in the Weald of south-eastern England. It was formerly an important industry, producing a large proportion of the bar iron made in England in the 16th century and most British cannon until about 1770. Ironmaking in the Weald used ironstone from various clay beds, and was fuelled by charcoal made from trees in the heavily wooded landscape. The industry in the Weald declined when ironmaking began to be fuelled by coke made from coal, which does not occur accessibly in the area.
The Oratory stands to the north of Liverpool Anglican Cathedral in Merseyside, England. It was originally the mortuary chapel to St James Cemetery, and houses a collection of 19th-century sculpture and important funeral monuments as part of the Walker Art Gallery. It is a Grade I listed building in the National Heritage List for England.
Ironwork is any weapon, artwork, utensil, or architectural feature made of iron, especially one used for decoration. There are two main types of ironwork: wrought iron and cast iron. While the use of iron dates as far back as 4000BC, it was the Hittites who first knew how to extract it and develop weapons. Use of iron was mainly utilitarian until the Middle Ages; it became widely used for decoration in the period between the 16th and 19th century.
Malleable iron is cast as white iron, the structure being a metastable carbide in a pearlitic matrix. Through an annealing heat treatment, the brittle structure as first cast is transformed into the malleable form. Carbon agglomerates into small roughly spherical aggregates of graphite, leaving a matrix of ferrite or pearlite according to the exact heat treatment used. Three basic types of malleable iron are recognized within the casting industry: blackheart malleable iron, whiteheart malleable iron and pearlitic malleable iron.
Jean Tijou was a French Huguenot ironworker. He is known solely through his work in England, where he worked on several of the key English Baroque buildings. Very little is known of his biography. He arrived in England in c. 1689 and enjoyed the patronage of William III and Mary II where he was titled as England's Best Wrought-iron Designer. He was employed at St Paul's for twenty years. Not only did he work for royal destinations, but he also worked for estates and other private homes located on the countryside. He left England for the continent c. 1712. He was father-in-law to the painter of decorative schemes Louis Laguerre who married in St Martin-in-the-Fields in London. Tijou had a wife named Ann Tijou as well as a daughter. She was married in the church of St. Martin's. Both wife and daughter were buried there as well.
Cast-iron architecture is the use of cast iron in buildings and objects, ranging from bridges and markets to warehouses, balconies and fences. Refinements developed during the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century made cast iron relatively cheap and suitable for a range of uses, and by the mid-19th century it was common as a structural material, and particularly for elaborately patterned architectural elements such as fences and balconies, until it fell out of fashion after 1900 as a decorative material, and was replaced by modern steel and concrete for structural purposes.
Prospect Hill Historic District is located on a hillside outside of downtown Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. It is part of the Mount Auburn neighborhood of Cincinnati. Prospect Hill is bounded by the following streets, Liberty, Sycamore, Boal and Highland. Prospect Hill is sometimes called locally "Liberty Hill".
St Nicholas Chapel is a private chapel in the grounds of Cholmondeley Castle, Cheshire, England, the ancient seat of the Marquess of Cholmondeley, hereditary Lord Great Chamberlain of England. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building.
St Peter's Church is in Chapel Street, Congleton, Cheshire, England. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building. It is an active Anglican parish church in the Diocese of Chester, the archdeaconry of Macclesfield and the deanery of Congleton. Its benefice is combined with those of St Stephen, Congleton, St John the Evangelist, Buglawton, and Holy Trinity, Mossley. Alec Clifton-Taylor includes it in his list of 'best' English parish churches. The Church Buildings Council included St Peter's in its group of 300 Major Parish Churches following research produced in 2016. [Pursell 2016]
St Mary's Church is located on Overleigh Road in Handbridge, an area south of the River Dee, in the city of Chester, Cheshire, England. It is also known as the Church of St Mary-without-the-Walls. The church is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II* listed building. It is an active Anglican parish church in the diocese of Chester, the archdeaconry of Chester and the deanery of Chester.
Warrington Town Hall is in the town of Warrington, Cheshire, England. It consists of a house, originally called Bank Hall, flanked by two detached service wings at right angles to the house, one on each side. The house and the service wings are each recorded in the National Heritage List for England as designated Grade I listed buildings. Being in that part of the town north of the River Mersey, the house falls within the historic county of Lancashire. The architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner declared it to be "the finest house of its date in south Lancashire".
Dixie Selden was an American artist. She studied with Frank Duveneck, who was a mentor and significant influence, and William Merritt Chase, who introduced her to Impressionism. Selden painted portraits of Americans and made genre paintings, landscapes and seascapes from her travels within the country and to Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Mexico. She helped found and was twice the president of the Women's Art Club of Cincinnati. Her works have been exhibited in the United States. She was one of the Daughters of the American Revolution and on the Social Register.
The Davies brothers of Bersham, near Wrexham in north Wales, were a family of smiths active in the 18th century. They were particularly known for their high-quality work in wrought iron, of which several examples still survive in country homes and churchyards around the England-Wales border.
St Olave's Church is a redundant Anglican parish church located in Lower Bridge Street, Chester, Cheshire, England. The church is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II listed building.
Stewart Iron Works is an American ironworks plant in Erlanger, Kentucky. It is one of the region's oldest manufacturing firms and at its peak was the largest iron fence maker in the world. Stewart's is the second-oldest iron company in continuous operation in the United States. Based at 30 Kenton Lands Rd, its first location was at 8th & Madison in Covington, Kentucky. It is currently owned by the HGC Group of Companies but was originally established by the Scottish American Stewart family. The company was founded in 1862 and incorporated in 1910.
Kenny Poole was an American jazz guitarist, a prominent musician on the Cincinnati musical scene. Allaboutjazz.com referred to him as a "guitarist's guitarist" and noted his "soulful and sophisticated finger-style arrangements". He was particularly accomplished at bossa nova and chord melody solo playing.
Daniel J. Ransohoff was an American associate professor of Community Planning at the University of Cincinnati, and a promoter of the city as a planner, tour guide, historian, professor, photographer and fund-raiser. In the early 1950s, he was on the staff of Family Service, for which he took photographs of the clients the agency was serving.