Crucible Furnace

The Crucible Steel Furnace at Abbeydale is the only one of its kind still surviving intact in the UK.

Built in around 1830, it supplied the works with quality steel for toolmaking. Work here was both strenuous and skilled, with temperatures in the crucible furnace reaching 1600°C.

Explore the Pot Shop, where the clay crucible pots were made for the furnace; the Charge Room, where the raw materials for the steel were prepared and weighed; the Cellar where the 'nipper' or 'cellar lad' removed the furnace ash and controlled the draught on the instructions of the melter; and the Teeming Bay, where steel was poured into ingot moulds with strength and precision.

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