Ironworks

An ironworks or iron works is a building or site where iron is smelted and where heavy iron and/or steel products are made. The term is both singular and plural, i.e. the singular of ironworks is ironworks.

Ironworks succeed bloomeries when blast furnaces replaced former methods. An integrated ironworks in the 19th century usually included one or more blast furnaces and a number of puddling furnaces and/or a foundry with or without other kinds of ironworks. After the invention of the Bessemer process, converters became widespread, and the appellation steelworks replaced ironworks.

The processes carried at ironworks are usually described as ferrous metallurgy, but the term siderurgy is also occasionally used. This is derived from the Greek words sideros - iron and ergon or ergos - work. This is an unusual term in English, and it is best regarded as an anglicisation of a term used in French, Spanish, and other Romance languages.

Varieties of ironworks

Primary ironmaking

Ironworks is used as an omnibus term covering works undertaking one or more iron-producing processes. Such processes or species of ironworks where they were undertaken include the following:

Iron Works

Iron Works may refer to:

Bowling Iron Works

The Bowling Iron Works was an iron working complex established around 1780 in the district of East Bowling part of the township and manor of Bowling, now in the southeast of Bradford in Yorkshire, England. The operation included mining coal and iron ore, smelting, refining, casting and forging to create finished products.

Mineral deposits

Iron is said to have been worked in the vicinity of Bradford in Roman times. The monks of Rievaulx Abbey to the east were working iron on land owned by their monastery in 1150, and forgemen are mentioned in 1358. Surface coal was being extracted from outcrops and shallow pits by 1360, and coal mines were worked by 1502. The Bowling Ironworks were established in the 1780s to smelt and forge iron from the Black Bed ironstone deposits using coal from the Better Bed seam, both of which lay under the site. The ironstone yields about 32% iron. The Better Bed coal is free of sulfur, making it ideal for furnaces used in smelting, puddling and forging. The Black Bed coal, nearer to the surface, could be sold or used for firing boilers and other purposes.