Foundry House, Milkwall =>Iron works ? Darkhill ? (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Sunday, January 31, 2016, 19:08 (3015 days ago) @ euansma

Hi,
I don't know Milkwall very well, hopefully you do, but I'll contact my bro-in-law in Coalway this week who may be able to help. In the meantime are you on Ancestry or similar ?, sadly I'm not. If you are then I suggest search the 1911, 1901 etc Census' just for "Foundry House Milkwall" or "Foundry Cottage Milkwall" etc. If it could be found, hopefully the neighbouring households and maybe landmarks such as pubs will give clues as to where the house was/is.
(Unless of course you know the Frowens were already there at that time ?)

Despite thorough online searching I've found no hints whatsoever of such an address in Milkwall. (There is a "Foundry Houses" address just north, in Coalway, but I cannot see how they could be interpreted as Milkwall. This lack of findings surprises me a little - you probably know that the Milkwall area was full of iron mines in the past, hence I'd expect to see a few foundries too to process the iron ore into castings or even steel.
This 1894 map shows just how many iron mines there were, indicated by brown spots rather than the usual black for coal mines.
http://lightmoor.co.uk/forestcoal/Staunton.html

So, my suspicion is that Foundry House will be near to a foundry aka iron/steel works, possibly even a substantial house built for/by the works owner ??

The above map also shows the route of the Severn & Wye Railway, and Milkwall Station, all marked in blue. Inside the bend below Milkwall Station see "steel works".

This excellent Ordnance Survey map from 1884 has a building labelled "steel works(disused)" (with it's blue pond).
(Zoom into the lower R/H corner of this page using your mousewheel)
http://maps.nls.uk/view/101453631
The same site's later maps show the now un-named works becomes part of the expanding Gorsty Knoll quarry.

I think this Steel Works must be a later part of the important old Darkhill Furnaces complex, the remains of which were a few yards to the south-east.. just off this map, sorry for my bad luck, I always seem to be on the edge of any map !

The adjoining map can be seen here, in 1924 version;
http://maps.nls.uk/view/102346004

Despite the labelling suggesting that it's placed further south, the original Dark Hill complex is actually situated at the southern end of Gorsty Knoll but definitely north of the Ellwood-Coalway Road, and just north/inside the old railway line loop. The outline of the complex walls is marked just below the open triangle-shaped area, by the word "coal level". Look up/left to northwest and the aforementioned "steel works" is under the "old quarry" & "spr" labels. The "spring" for a copious water supply is essential for steel making.

Hopefully the maps display well for you, they're very detailed but I cannot see any buildings marked Foundry House, just a Quarry House, but I do suspect your Foundry House was/is nearby the general Dark Hill area !.

I do hope you are happy viewing the old maps, I find them fascinating and very helpful, but I appreciate they're not everyone's cup of tea. I also know from experience some computers struggle to load them, hope not for you. Regarding the Darkhill Furnaces complex, the outlines shown on the maps nicely match this aerial photo, viewed from due east, it's also clearly visible on Google Earth.
https://content.historicengland.org.uk/remote/content.historicengland.org.uk/content/re...
This photo is from an impressive Report about the whole Forest of Dean based on aerial photography.
https://historicengland.org.uk/research/research-results/recent-research-results/south-...

The 166 page Report details the area's industrial history since ancient times until now (Scowles, quarrying, mining, iron-working etc) and even military sites from the World Wars, highly-recommended reading. It can be downloaded free-of-charge as a pdf file for easy searching etc, from here
https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/forest-of-dean-mapping-project...

More about Darkhill Furnaces here
https://sites.google.com/site/keithlloydwebb/forest-of-dean-articles-1/darkhill-iron-works
http://www.wyedeantourism.co.uk/discover/Things%20to%20do/i-4362-Dark_Hill_Iron_Works