Newcastle, Wright and Brown's Foundry

HER Number:
5048

District:
Newcastle

Site Name:
Newcastle, Wright and Brown's Foundry

Place:
Newcastle

Map Sheet:
NZ26SW

Class:
Industrial

Site Type: Broad:
Metal Product Site

Site Type: Specific:
Iron Foundry

General Period:
Early Modern

Specific Period:
C19

Form of Evidence:
Documentary Evidence

Description:
White & Brown's Foundry (Iron) is shown on 1st edition Ordnance Survey map of 1862. However the name of the company is actually Wright & Brown. An inscribed stone for Wright & Brown dating to 1839 survives and Wright & Brown are listed in Ward's Directory of 1851 as being on Regent Street. The foundry is shown on Oliver's 1849 map and on OS maps until 1881. By 1919 it had been replaced by Forth Banks Engineering Works. Archaeological excavation 2017 revealed the south-west corner of the foundry. The external walls were built of substantial sandstone. Internal sandstone walls were also revealed. The 1896 Goad Insurance Plan labels the rooms Mill Edge Runners and Drying Stoves. A rectangular furnace measuring 2.94m x 1.94m in plan, was found within the south-west drying stove room. The furnace was built of firebricks stamped VGC (Victoria Garesfield Colliery, near Rowlands Gill). There was a floor surface of red and yellow firebricks and another of sandstone blocks. Elements of six drying stoves were built into the earlier internal walls of the foundry building. The stoves comprised of brick or firebrick walls and a heat-reddened stone floor. Within the north-east drying stove room ground raising deposits were recorded abutting one of the inner walls. Within one of these raising deposits were broken off 'legs' of kiln furniture known as 'stilts with fishtail ends' and saggars. These were used at Newcastle Pottery on nearby Forth Banks. Pottery sherds, wasters and clay tobacco pipe were also recovered from these layers. It seems that waste material from the pottery was brought to the foundry site to be used as levelling and ground raising deposits. Other levelling deposits contained clinker fragments and iron slag fragments. A floor surface would have been placed on top.

Easting:
2464

Northing:
6367

Grid Reference:
NZ24646367

Lats/Lons:

Sources:
<< HER 5048 >> 1st edition Ordnance Survey map, 1859; PLB Consulting Ltd with Northern Counties Archaeological Services, 2001, The Stephenson Quarter, Newcastle upon Tyne - Conservation Plan and Archaeological Assessment; Pre-Construct Archaeology, March 2018, Archaeological Investigations at the Proposed Site of Stephenson Quarter Public Square, Newcastle upon Tyne - Areas 1 & 2, Foundation Trench, Trenches 1, 4, 5 & 6