All that remains of Sandsend Alum House is one wall which is now the entrance and exit to a car park which was built in the 1960s when the sea wall damaged.
It is believed to have operated between 1733 and 1860 although building were still standing on the site in more recent time (entrances can be seem to right of viaduct)
In what it now a car park are the remains of Grosmont Ironworks built in 1862 and demolished in 1892. Despite now being a rural setting the immediate area contains numerous ironstone mines.
The most promenant feature is a large brick structure which is believed to be part of the system which carried raw materials to the top of the three blast furnaces. Apologies for the dark photos but it was getting late and I only had a basic camera.
Closer to the railway station is the base of the third blast furnace, added in 1876
Despite being very close to Lumpsey pit, this item has no relation to the ironstone site.
The wheel was donated to the “Blooming Lights” group in September 2003 and originated at the Boulby Potash mine.
At 18ft I have read elsewhere it is the largest Sheave wheel in Europe.
The footpath down Hummersea steps cuts right through the remains of the Alum House for the Loftus Alum Quarries.
The remains of the building are fast eroding out of the cliff and will likely be gone within a few years.
A three story building with a large chimney was photographed on the site around 1900, by 1910 it was a complete ruin with only a couple of small wall remnants left.
Loftus Alum works began operation in the 1650’s and ran until the 1860’s and cover roughly half a mile on a quarried shelf below the cliff. Alum is a mordant for fixing dyes to cloths.
The quarrying process has left large sandstone cliffs at the back of the quarries
The quarries themselves are still barren with little vegetation ever having returned to the slopes.
After quarrying the alum shale was burned for many months in large mounds called clamps, a process called calcining. Areas of burned red shale can be seen on the site, although its possible these are from natural fires at a later date rather than clamps.
There are the remains of several steeping pits, where the burnt alum shale would then have placed in water to dissolve the alum salts, these are rapidly nearing the cliff edge and will erode away in a few years time.
Carved stone troughs can also be found which would have transported liquids around the site.
The alum liquor would have been transferred into a tank or cistern to allow any particles to settle out, a double walled circular cistern can be still be seen protruding from the edge of the cliff.
The settled liquor would then have been transferred to the Alum House where it was concentrated by evaporation until a specific concentration was reached, said to be the point where an egg would float in it. Akali (usually kelp or urine) was then added and the alum crystals formed as the liquid cooled.
The whole area around Kettleness is heavily scarred by industry (despite now being very picturesque) there are workings for Jet, Alum, Ironstone and Cementstone all in a small area.
Ironstone was quarried on the foreshore and around the edge of the headland there are many inaccessible jet workings located high in the cliff.
Down at sea level there are also numerous jet workings accessible at low tides
Traces of jet can still be found in the rocks in the area
The headland has also taken victim much shipping over the years, with two wrecks identifyable.
The sun dial was donated by Henry Bolckow in 1879 (aong with the park itself in 1868)
It was designed by John Smith of Stockton and gives the times in New York and Melbourne as well as Middlesbrough.
The plaque below it shows corrections for the time of year, accounting for BST its pretty much spot on for the time I took the photo.
This 42 tonne slag ladle was designed by Ashmore, Benson and Pease in Darlington. It operated at the Bessamer plant close by.
It was placed at the Business Centre in 2004 after being in storage at Kirkleatham for many years.
Henry Bolckow is acknowledged as one of the founding fathers of Middlesbrough, having been its first mayor. The statue by D.W.S.Stevenson dates from 1881 and was unveiled to a crowd of 65,000 by Lord Frederick Cavendish
His statue stands with its back to the flyover that caused the demolition of the Royal Exchange, although it is now near its original position having been in Albert Park between 1924 and 1986
Around Exchange Square are some other remnants of the former Royal Exchange building.
Hidden away in a staff car park and with no information board.
Iron was poured into this vessel and taken to the caster plant and tipped into “pigs”
The other unusual item is apparently a scale car from the Cleveland Iron Plant. It picked up the charge for the blast furnace before dumping it in the furnace hopper cars.
The “Old Hall” museum itself is always worth a visit, although it was actually the Free School built in 1709 perhaps by William Wakefield or Robert Hooke
Carrs Tilery operated from 1867 until 1879, they produced land drains, pipes, tiles and bricks used by the Skelton Estate and the local ironstone mines. Its also believe they produced the bricks for the houses at Margrove Park.
The remains of two kilns are visible, one just consists of a few remains of walls.
A second is much more complete and heaps of tiles can also be found in the undergrowth.
The rest of the site is private property, although a chimney can be seen above the trees and a building beside the adjacent railway line remains.
A large number of pits, usually just mounds but occasionally shafts (up to 160ft deep) capped with large stones are spread across the moorland between Clitherbeck Farm and Poverty Hill. Coal was worked here from the 16th century until the 1890s
A well next to Rose Cottage has ochreous mine water bubbling up from the nearby workings.
Rock Hole Alum Quarry was started by John Atherton of Skelton Castle in 1604 and was the earliest in the district and the first success works in the whole country.
Despite being idle from hundreds of years, little vegetation ever grows back.
Taken as the sun cast a shadow over them last autumn.
The left-hand incline leads to an 1895 western silica quarries, the more prominent right-hand incline leads to the 1919 main and eastern silica quarries.The remains of a quarry can clearly be seen in the hillside center-right.
The silica works was at the bottom of the right-hand incline where the road to Castleton passed under the Esk Valley Railway.
This small stretch of wall is built from the tuyeres, which allowed air into the Bessemer converters of the Eston Steelworks.
The railway that ran along the embankment served the Eston Ironstone mines.
A short series of posts inspired by looking through my older printed photos, before going digital and before this website existed.
I’m afraid I don’t remember the date this happened, but I got informed about it due to my job. The general public however were unaware and it must have come as a big shock to the people driving down the Trunk Road that day.
I suspect it was this event recorded in a corporate report I found online.
The old Lackenby open hearth steelmaking building at Teesside, which was built in 1953, was demolished in 2004. The building contained over 20,000 tonnes of structural steel and cladding, which was then recycled at a rate of about 1,000 tonnes each week over a five-month period.
A friend of mine has the whole thing on video, which i’ve now got on YouTube (no sound unfortunately)
Although there ironstone workings in the immediate area and this looks like a drift I dont think it is.
I think this is more likely the location where the culvert from the Boulby Alum Works passed underneath the road on its way to the Alum House for processing.
The house is probably not original, although a wall in the garden at the edge of the cliff looks much older. The vertical shaft from the Boulby Alum Tunnel on the shore would emerge in the garden of this house were it still open.
Aislaby Quarry was a source of blockstones in the 17th and 18th Century for harbours such as Whitby, Margate and Ramsgate, and the Strand Bridge in London.
The blockstone was returned from the Whitby pier in 1964
The quarry reopened in 2002, I have read that in the 1970s the remains of a jet mines were also accessible, but the whole area seems to have been freshly opened up, so I doubt the current owners would take kindly to visitors searching for any remains.
Two large telecommunications cables land on the Stray between Redcar and Marske.
CANTAT-3 links to Canada, Iceland, Faroe Islands, Denark and Germany.
Pangea North links to Fanø in Denmark
On Google Earth they can be clearly seen to line up with two rows of large posts either side of the car park, which must have been placed to alert any rogue JCBs to their position.
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