Building 19, former workshop at Elsecar Ironworks

The former workshop at Elsecar Ironworks, likely built around 1835 for Earl Fitzwilliam, is a two-storey structure made of well-dressed, coursed sandstone with deep horizontal tooling, while the upper floor's inner facing is brick. The roof is covered with Welsh slate.

The building currently has an undivided interior space accessed through large double doors on the north-east gable. Originally, the ground floor was open-fronted on the south-east side, featuring a central first-floor taking-in door above. A smaller pedestrian door on the south-west gable provided access to an internal staircase leading to the first floor, but all these openings have since been blocked.

The exterior consists of five bays with regularly spaced windows on the side walls, each featuring stone lintels and projecting sills. The surviving window frames are made of cast iron and divided into small panes. The first-floor taking-in doorway is quoined but is now partially obscured by a later building. The north-east gable was previously largely open to a lower, gabled structure that has been removed, and this opening has been filled with 20th-century brickwork where the large double doors have been inserted. The original open front on the south-east side has been infilled with earlier brickwork. The gables are raised and coped, and there is no evidence of removed chimneys.

Inside, the iron lintel and supporting cast iron columns from the original open-fronted ground floor are visible. These columns appear to be similar to those used in other open-fronted buildings constructed for Earl Fitzwilliam’s Central Workshops in the 1850s. Scarring from a removed stone staircase on the south-west gable and blocked sockets for substantial floor beams suggest that an upper floor was originally present. The roof structure is exposed, featuring timber trusses with underdrawn rafters. There is also an inserted steel joist, likely for a winch, positioned next to the tie beam of one of the roof trusses.