Underside of 19-century crucible steel works

3D Model

In 1871, Sanderson Brothers built a factory making crucible steel in Darnall, Sheffield, UK. Each crucible furnace was small, but this had several dozen of them, side by side. The model here shows the underside of one furnace, with rough versions of its neighbours on either side. You can see the bars used to make the grate, and various structures to hold everything in place. At the far wall, a channel (now blocked) led to the flue. This channel could be closed down, so that the fire in the furnace (which had its own channel to the flue) would burn hotter. All this is underground, in a nicely constructed vaulted row. The model was created from photos taken on 19 September 2019, using Meshroom and Meshlab software. The visit was organised by the Hunter Archaeological Society. The site is a Scheduled Monument – try https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1247446 or some other entry matching “CRUCIBLE STEEL SHOP IN SOUTH CORNER OF SANDERSONS KAYSERS DARNALL WORKS, DARNALL ROAD”.