IronMasters
District & Trail
The birthplace of modern Middlesbrough.
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The Ironmasters’ District is an area of
land to the south of the River Tees at Middlesbrough
in the north-east of England.
Map Reference NZ
480 200 and NZ 480 210.
Until about 130 years ago the riverbank was
a salt marsh with its surface level some 6 metres
lower than at present. The Middlesbrough Improvement
and Extension Act of 1866 was introduced for
the purpose of encouraging industry and the ‘West
Marsh ‘ as it was called then, was incorporated
into the new town of Middlesbrough. The Ironmasters’ District
became one of the three major concentrations
of iron making plant on the banks of the River
Tees, along with Grangetown and Port Clarence.
The history of Middlesbrough revolves
around the development of the iron and steel industry
on the river Tees from the middle of the nineteenth
century. There is very little physical evidence
remaining of the heavy industry that once dominated
this stretch of the river.
However,
it is not so far in the past to have been lost
in the memory of those who worked and lived within
sight and sound of the awesome blast furnaces,
calcining kilns, puddling furnace plants, forges
and rolling mills of the Newport, Ayresome and
Britannia Ironworks.
The lronmasters' District was the birthplace
of modern Middlesbrough, created by outstanding
personalities such as John Gjers (Ayresome Ironworks)
and Bernhard Samuelson (Britannia and Newport
Ironworks). Like all the Ironmasters they were
in-comers - Gjers came from Sweden in 1851 and
Samuelson from Liverpool.
Skilled workers arrived from older iron-making
districts such as South Wales, Staffordshire
and Shropshire. Labourers who handled pig iron
and slag came from farming areas such as Yorkshire,
East Anglia and Ireland. One can barely begin
to imagine the dramatic contrast that awaited
these rural families when suddenly transplanted
into the noisy, crowded streets of the Cannon
Street area, across the railway bridge from the
lronmasters' District.
In the late 1970s, a reclamation scheme
began to encourage new investment to the Ironmaster’s
District. Many of the existing industrial features
were demolished and all that remains in many areas
are large patches of rubble and building foundations.
Despite
clearance, a number of features of interest are
still to be seen in the area. These include parts
of two of the blast furnaces from the former Newport
Ironworks, the empty Middlesbrough Dock, Jetties
and wharves alongside the river, 19th century
buildings near Dock Street and the newest addition
to the area, the Riverside Stadium, which was
completed in 1995.
The Ironmasters’ Trail is a guided walk
around the Ironmasters’ District, incorporating
information panels and the sights and sounds
of the River Tees. It would take approximately
1-2 hours to complete the circuit and the pathway
is accessible to wheelchair users with only one
steep bank to navigate. A shorter walk is also
available in the Southwest Ironmasters’ Park.
intro | gallery | reports | further
information |
