Hamsterley Colliery Derwentcote steel furnace (The Cone)

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 24 September 2024 to update the name and address and reformat the text to current standards.

NZ 15 NW 1/40

CONSETT Hamsterley Colliery FORGE LANE (east side) Derwentcote Steel Furnace Museum Hamsterley Colliery Derwentcote steel furnace (The Cone)

(Formerly listed as Hamsterley Colliery Derwent Cote steel furnace ("The Cone"), FORGE LANE)

6/6/51

GV I Steel-making furnace. First half of eighteenth century, for the cementation process. Coursed sandstone rubble with some ashlar dressings; no roof at time of survey. One storey, four bays with high cone on second bay furnace. three buttresses support cone; small square openings between buttresses, that at right blocked; rough wood lintels to partly-blocked door to right of furnace, and empty window in first bay; stone sill to window in fourth bay (with ruined lintel) has O.S. bench mark. Return gables survive to full height, the left with large buttress. Rear elevation shows three buttresses to furnace, the central truncated and the left built into later one storey, one bay outshut. High stone cone has two square flue openings at top of ground floor; cone contains square opening with rebated stone lintel and jambs and plain stone sill.

Interior: iron lintels over funnelled entrances to cone, with inner brick pointed arch in that at right and stone lintel in that at left, both flanked by buttresses.

The only complete surviving example in England of a cementation furnace. Empty and derelict at time of survey. An Ancient Monument in Guardianship.

Listing NGR: NZ1304456511