The Furnace

The Furnace is a Grade II listed blast furnace and warehouse dating from around 1800. It is constructed of red brick, featuring some stone quoins and keystones. The warehouse, attached to the left, has some ground floor walling made of coursed squared rubble and a plain tile roof with two ridge stacks. The furnace itself has three sloping walls, with the fourth wall attached to the warehouse.

The structure is three storeys high and showcases a pair of arches with semi-circular heads on three sides surrounding the polygonal furnace. There are also large, partly blocked arches with inward sloping walls in the basement, all featuring keystones. Inside the right end basement arch, there are two iron beams and remnants of a tap-hole.

The warehouse has three storeys and a basement, with four windows on the front and rear, most of which are blocked. The top floor features three brickwork ventilation panels, while the ground floor has two doors with cambered brick lintels. At the rear, there are two doors and a window opening, all with cambered brick lintels, along with a door that has a stone lintel in the stone section.

On the right end, there are three arches leading to the top of the furnace, and a large arch in the left end wall contains a beam at the springing level, possibly with contemporary infill above and 20th-century work below, including a doorway. There are also 20th-century brick buttresses below. To the left of the end, the remains of one arch of a bridge can be seen, which provided a slope for transporting materials for smelting to the top floor of the warehouse and then to the top of the furnace. The stone sections in the front and rear walls of the warehouse may indicate the encasing of an earlier structure related to the nearby lime kilns. The site is also designated as a scheduled monument.