Iron Smelter

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A three-stage structure of basalt laid out on a square ground plan with openings at the base on three sides. The main opening faces east.

East elevation comprises three stages: lower stage of square plan with flush sides, built of basalt rubble, with roughly squared quoins; central opening set in three-centre arched opening, with roughly shaped voussoirs, splayed reveals, rubble vaulted, containing a recessed opening with a large lintel (now fractured) with some firebrick dressings to the right-hand side. The middle stage is of square plan, set back, with battered faces; similar rubble walling with similar quoins. The top stage is of circular plan, with cylindrical base wall surmounted by receding concentric courses of rubble forming a roughly domical top.

South face and north face similar to east but the opening in each is slightly smaller, and no brickwork to jambs; openings blocked by loose rubble.

West face similar to previous three, but without any opening; some stones of base wall of top storey are missing.

SETTING: The building is set back into the side of a hill with a roughly flat area all round its perimeter; it stands in a stone walled enclosure in a field alongside the road and on the sloping bank above a river.
The boundary wall of the enclosure is of basalt rubble, and is in a tumbledown state and poor condition, with parts of it missing and the circuit incomplete.
A modern byre with concrete block side walls and corrugated iron and Perspex roofing, has been built on the high part of the site just to the rear of the smelter; byre now in derelict condition.
The gateway to the enclosure is filled by a crude screen of timber posts and corrugated iron, low enough to allow views over it.
Immediately in front of the east face is a water filled ditch running toward the east.
To the north east, just beyond the boundary wall are the remains of a ruined early 19th century mill comprising an east gable with short returns to each side; of roughly coursed rubble with long and short quoins, and containing a segmental arched opening at ground level with a rectangular window opening above.
The locality is very rural with a stream running by near the east boundary; agricultural land beyond, and distant views of mountains.

Historical information

Built in 1843 by Nicholas Crommelin as an iron ore smelting furnace. Crommelin, of Carrowdore Castle in Co Down, was the proprietor of the village of Newtown Crommelin which he founded and named after himself in 1824. His first attempts to colonize and develop the area were not very successful, and in an attempt to improve the conditions of the local inhabitants, in 1843 he asked J.F. Hodges, M.D., F.C.S., to examine some specimens of rock found near the village with a view to determining the possibility of establishing a local industry. Hodges found the rock to contain from 18 to 25 per cent of peroxide of iron; the furnace or smelter was then built "at considerable expense", in the words of Hodges, and prolonged experiments were conducted in smelting the ore on the spot by means of coke prepared from the peat of the district. Some metallic iron was obtained but it was found impossible to separate the metal properly from the scoriae and the work was abandoned. The furnace was closed in the belief that the ore of the area was too poor in metal to be employed in smelting. In 1867, however, an extensive bed of richer ore was identified nearby, on land owned by Edward Benn of Glenravel, and the iron mining industry of Co Antrim was eventually established, although the ore was exported rather than smelted locally.

The nearby corn mill to the north-east of the iron smelter was also built by Nicholas Crommelin, shortly after he established the village, but by 1835 the mill was described (in the Ordnance Survey Memoirs) as "idle" and by 1859 it was referred to (on the OS map) as "in ruins".

References – Primary sources
1. OS Map 1833, Co Antrim 24 (shows adjacent corn mill).
2. OS Map 1857, Co Antrim 24 (shows iron smelter but does not name it).
3. J.F. Hodges, 'Presidential address on Industrial Progress in the North of Ireland – Iron and Peat etc', Proceedings of the Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society for the Session 1875-76 (Belfast, 1876), pp 1-17.
4. Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland, Vol 13: Parishes of County Antrim IV, 1830-8 (Belfast, 1992), pp 81 and 83 (refers to the adjacent corn mill).

Secondary Sources
1. H.E. Wilson, 'The rise and decline of the iron ore and bauxite industry of Co Antrim', Proceedings and Reports of the Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society, 2nd Series, Vol 7, 1965, pp 14-23.
2. W.A. McCutcheon, The Industrial Archaeology of Northern Ireland (HMSO, Belfast, 1980), plate 140.4.
3. K.J. O'Hagan, 'The Iron Mines of Glenravel', The Glynns, Vol 8, 1980, pp 5-10.
4. F. Hamond, Antrim Coast and Glens Industrial Heritage (Belfast, 1991), pp 17 and 81.
5. IHR no. 5701.

Criteria for listing: historic interest

W. Northern Ireland/International Interest
Z. Rarity
V. Authorship
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

This is a building which is designed in a plain and utilitarian style of arcuated masonry construction, but has a distinctively proportioned three-tiered structure laid out on a centralised plan, with battered lower storeys and a domical top. It forms a distinctive and unusual object in its largely unspoiled rural setting. It is of great importance as the most noteworthy surviving structure from the pioneering days of the iron ore mining industry in Co Antrim, and stands as a rare and probably unique example of an early 19th century iron smelter in Northern Ireland.