Robin Longbottom on how Keighley was once home to at least a dozen iron foundries

UNTIL about 2005, a footpath led from Bridge Street in Keighley and passed between buildings, formerly occupied by Hattersley’s loom makers, to Beckside. At Beckside the path was covered in fine sand – it was discarded moulding sand that had accumulated over the years from Hattersley’s foundry, and covered the cobbles. Today the footpath to Beckside is closed and Hattersley’s foundry is long gone.

Keighley once had a dozen or more iron foundries. They mainly provided castings for textile machines, the machine tool industry, washing machine manufacturers and the gas and water industry.

The earliest foundry in the town was established in the late 18th century and a letterhead dated 1822 refers to it as the Keighley Old Foundry. It was in Cook Lane, only 50 or so yards from its junction with Low Street. When it came up for sale in 1863 it occupied almost a quarter of an acre between Cook Lane and North Street. The foundry had two cupolas for melting iron, two cranes, a mechanics’ shop, a blacksmiths’ shop and a model room where patterns were made and stored.

From about 1812 the foundry was occupied by Thomas Mills, a former Huddersfield ironmonger, who had moved to the town after his marriage to a Keighley girl in 1806. He made a variety of cast iron goods from domestic to industrial and he also dealt in bar, rod iron and steel. Until about 20 years ago, part of the site was occupied by John W Laycock & Co steel stockholders, whose access was from North Street.

In 1803 a second foundry was established by Thomas Barnett, in partnership with a man called Nicholls. It was located about half a mile from the town, and they advertised that they “cast every article in iron...at the shortest notice”. At this time mills began to replace the old joiner-built spinning frames, and their wooden pulley wheels, with frames and gears made of cast iron.

Casting, particularly of gear wheels, required a large degree of skill on the part of both the moulder and the pattern maker. The first process was to melt the iron. This was done in a cupola, a large vertical cylinder filled with layers of coke and fired from the bottom. When the fire was hot enough, pieces of iron were then dropped in through the top. Additional coke together with limestone, to act as a flux, was then added. As the iron melted it collected at the bottom of the cupola from where it was run out when the doors were opened.

The molten metal was then poured into boxes containing sand into which a wooden pattern had been pressed. The patterns were joiner-made and had to be slightly oversized to allow for shrinkage after the molten iron had cooled. However, in the early days poor quality casting often resulted in the cogs breaking off on large gears. The remedy, until the quality improved, was to fit wooden cogs into a cast iron gear wheel. These could then be individually replaced in the event of a breakage.

The quality of a casting not only depended upon the skill of the moulder, but on the sand that formed the mould. High-quality silica sand, whose grains would stick together and not collapse, was required. Local sand may once have been used but better quality sand came from Castleford, and the finest was brought by ship from Cornwall, via Liverpool.

Until the 1950s and 60s there were several large foundries in Keighley, including Hattersley's and Prince Smith’s, both textile machine makers; Summerscales and CWS (Co-operative Wholesale Society), who were washing machine makers; Dean Smith & Grace, machine tool makers, and Clapham Brothers, who made castings for the gas and water industries.