Moira Furnace facts for kids
The Moira Furnace is an old building from the 1800s where people used to make iron. It's located in Moira, Leicestershire, right next to the Ashby-de-la-Zouch Canal. The Earl of Moira had it built in 1804. Today, this special building is looked after by the North West Leicestershire District Council and works as a museum. You can see old lime kilns and craft workshops there too.
It's a very important historical site because it's still in great shape and shows us how things were made during the early days of the Industrial Revolution.
How the Furnace Worked
Moira Furnace was a special type of oven called a blast furnace. It used coke (a fuel made from coal) and a powerful steam-engine to blow air inside. This made it hot enough to melt iron ore found nearby. It also had a workshop, called a foundry, where they shaped the melted iron into useful items.
The furnace you see today has three main parts: the tall furnace building itself, the bridgehouse next to it, and a long ramp for loading materials. The blast furnace is the tall part with the arched openings at the bottom. Workers would bring raw materials like iron ore, coke, and limestone up the loading ramp. They would then tip these materials into the top of the furnace from a high platform called the bridgeloft. This bridgeloft is the top floor of the bridgehouse, which is the large building with the sloped roof behind the furnace. In the bridgeloft, the materials were likely weighed and mixed before being put into the furnace.
When the furnace was working, a steam engine (which is no longer there) blew a steady stream of air into the bottom. This made the coke burn much hotter, raising the temperature inside high enough to melt the iron. The hot gases would escape from the short chimney at the top. Once the iron was melted, it was drained from the bottom of the furnace and poured into molds to create pig iron.
Moira Furnace is one of the few blast furnaces from this time that still exists. This is partly because it wasn't very successful. If it had worked well, it probably would have been changed or replaced over time.
History of Moira Furnace
In 1804, the Earl of Moira decided to build the furnace. He wanted to use the iron ore and lots of coal that were found underground in his land, the Ashby Woulds area. The location was chosen because it was close to the Ashby Canal for easy transport. Also, the land was low, which meant they didn't have to lift the heavy raw materials too high.
However, this was a time when blast furnace designs were still improving. Some parts of the Moira Furnace design didn't work very well. It started making iron in 1806, but it was only used sometimes until 1811. The foundry, where iron was shaped, kept working until after 1844, but it used iron brought in from other places.
Historical records show that even though they sometimes made good iron, the furnace had constant problems. Documents mention issues with the design, how it was built, the quality of the raw materials, and how it was managed. However, many of these documents were written by people trying to avoid blame. The furnace was eventually left with its last batch of materials still inside, only partly melted. Tests have shown that the raw materials had a lot of sulfur, which might have caused problems. Also, the chimney shows signs of getting extremely hot, suggesting a design flaw or a problem with how it was operated.
The foundry connected to the furnace was used for several more years, using pig iron brought from elsewhere. But it was torn down later in the 1800s. Meanwhile, the bridgehouse and the engine house (a separate building) were turned into homes and survived. By the 1970s, these buildings were falling apart and affected by ground sinking due to mining. The engine house was then demolished.
After some people and groups, like Philip Riden and the Leicestershire Industrial History Society, pushed for it, the furnace and bridgehouse were protected as an ancient monument. The North West Leicestershire District Council bought the site in 1981. They started a program to restore the site and turn it into a museum and country park.
Today, there is a museum inside the bridgehouse, run by the Moira Furnace Museum Trust. It's open regularly and has information and displays about Moira Furnace and the industrial history of the area.
The furnace has also become a popular spot for groups like Swadlincote Paranormal Investigations, who look for unusual activities. They hold night events there that the public can join.
Gallery
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Moira Furnace with the furnace stack at the front and the bridgehouse building at the rear. Originally, there would have been a casting shed in front of the furnace where the iron 'pigs' were made.
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The front of the furnace, showing the casting arch and hearth at the bottom.
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The hearth of the furnace, with the remains of the last failed firing (the yellowish mass) at the bottom. You can see handprints cast into the uprights of the hearth. A hole lets you see inside the furnace, which is now empty.
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The chimney on top of the furnace. The new outer wall has a gap so you can see the original inner wall (which was badly damaged from overheating) and look down into the furnace.
See also
- Ashby-de-la-Zouch Canal
