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In Mid Staffordshire near the county town, there is a wealth of industrial history. This area includes Cannock Chase an SSSI with rare plants and insects found only in a few areas of the UK. In mediaeval times the limited water resources flowing from the “Chase” were utilised to drive forges and a Blast furnace near the town of Hednesford . This industry was later a satellite activity of the Foley partnership of North Worcestershire. Nearby woodlands provided the charcoal, ironstone and limestone came from nearby Walsall along the “ Ironstone road. “ over what was “Norton Bog” ( Burntwood Staffs) The Foley family were iron masters of standing and resided at Witley Court Nr Droitwich Worcestershire. So the medieval industrial revolution was well developed by Late 14th century ! The Hednsford Furnace little recorded, was a significant contributor to the Foley empire in terms of output.. There is little evidence of the blast furnace site today obviously, The area has mounds of slag overgrown with weeds and the ever defiant silver birch trees. The Pagett furnace (circa 1560-80) was able to produce 1 ton of iron in 24 hrs. The furnace had a water wheel with spigots attached, these, in turn, raised the top half of two large bellows alternately blowing super charged air in to furnace base, hence the name “ Blast Furnace”. Temperatures of 1400 c would extract molten iron from the ore. This process was well established by 1650.
The efficiency of these early blast furnaces was in the region of 15 %
The “pig “ iron was then forged into manageable sizes and worked to make it “ wrought iron”, later the process involved a *Slitting Mill where rolling and slitting produced sized strips for nail making an forging. Pack horses and carts would then transport the wrought iron to forges in the industrial Midlands.... VIDEO CLIP >>>>>>>>>
Pictured left is the site of a canal coal loading bridge. Built in the 1920’s by the Cannock Chase Colliery Co, this enabled the inverting of half ton coal “tubs” to fill awaiting barges. 2ft gauge rope railways brought the coal from underground and over ground to the loader. Much of the electrical power for this system came from the companies own power station (600KW).”Tubs can be seen being filled at the coal face ,above pic, The rope railways ran for several miles replacing some surface locomotive activity as a semi automated mechanical handling rail system . The Cannock Chase Colliery Co had extensive workshops and rebuilt a small steam locomotive in the mid 40’s.
The surface railway line ran to other collieries to give access to the main line for coal distribution and an further canal basin at Cannock Staffordshire.
After the nationalisation of the coal industry in 1947 several local mines closed as uneconomic. The two remaining pits of the company ( N0 8 & No 3) remained open until Jan 1962. Slide Show / Video>>>>>>>>
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