Buildings 2 & 3 and boundary wall, former Elsecar Ironworks entry range

Ironworks entrance building, 1860s for Dawes’ Elsecar Ironworks. Renovated 1990 as part of Elsecar Heritage Centre.

MATERIALS: well-dressed, coursed sandstone to the west elevation facing Forge Lane, brick to the remaining elevations. Welsh slate roofs with one, short brick ridge stack.

PLAN: a linear, two-storey range, with two through-accesses for carriages.

EXTERIOR: Forge Lane (west) elevation. This is now of six bays with four, round-arched windows to the first-floor, the bays at either end being blind. These windows have projecting sills and are blocked with brickwork set-back into the openings. The southernmost bay to the ground floor has a similar window opening that is blocked with stonework. The next two bays form the original carriage entrance to the ironworks, this with an impressively wide basket arch formed with a single iron casting supporting two courses of brick headers. The jambs are quoined and slightly chamfered and the opening is infilled with C20 brickwork. Immediately to the north is an inserted pedestrian entrance, also now blocked with brickwork, with a monolithic lintel supported by a flat iron plate. The next two bays had arched windows, the first now blocked, the second enlarged into a double door, the arched head to the window retained as an iron-framed fanlight. The bay to the north end has a narrow, voussoired-arched carriage entrance providing access to the rear of 4 Forge Lane.

East elevation: this is of mixed red brick, with yellow brick mostly used for the arches. There are four round-arched windows to the first-floor, two to the ground floor, all having distinctive iron-framed windows considered to have been like-for-like replacements of the originals. The broad carriage entrance with its cast iron basket arch is infilled with a glazed screen, the pedestrian entrance to the immediate north having a modern glazed door, a further doorway being inserted on the south side of the carriage archway. At the north end of the elevation there are two narrower carriage entrances, these having basket arches formed in brickwork, the northern being open, giving access to the rear yard of 4 Forge Lane, the southern being infilled with a modern glazed screen.

INTERIOR: this has been re-ordered but retains exposed timber king-post roof trusses.

SUBSIDIARY ITEM: the boundary wall that now links the entrance building to the casting house was formerly a continuation of the building range including the entrance to the ironworks. Its western face is stone, the eastern face is brick. It retains a further set of three blocked, round-arched windows with projecting stone sills which suggest that the wide archway was originally more central to the original design of the entrance building. Beyond these three blocked windows the wall is blind and steps up the hillside to meet the casting house.