Sheffield's steel-making history unearthed
A glimpse of a city's steel-making past has been unearthed at two archaeological sites.
The sites are on view for the first time on Friday and show the heritage of Sheffield's steel industry.
Digs at the Hollis Croft site and the previously excavated former Titanic Works uncovered remains of the industry prior to 1850.
Archaeologist Milica Rajic said: "You can see the driving force for Britain's industrial revolution." ... The Hollis Croft site and the Titanic Works, with three well-preserved cellars of crucible furnaces, can be toured as part of an archaeological open day.1
Sheffield’s illustrious industrial past is being painstakingly uncovered – before it disappears beneath another block of student flats.
Experts from Wessex Archaeology are digging on Hollis Street in the city centre and piecing together a more accurate picture of the city’s influential industrial history and the scale of steelmaking before 1850.
It is the second city centre site worked on by archaeologists uncovering the city’s proud industrial heritage.
Dinah Saich, principal archaeologist with South Yorkshire Archaeology Service, said she was amazed at the level of detail. ... “Here we can see there once was a big modern building that has seen some survival and most impressively this area of survival includes a pair of furnaces which were part of the early processes for making steel for which helped Sheffield become famous across the world for its metal trades." ... At Hollis Croft, the remains of a cementation furnace has been uncovered. Cementation furnaces were used to convert iron into blister steel and represent an earlier technology than the crucible furnaces.
The former cementation furnace chimneys at Hollis Croft are visible on an 1854 map with the principal surviving buildings at the former Titanic Works also dating to the same period.
