Derwentcote, in the Derwent Valley in County Durham, is home to a restored early steelworks built by the owners of the site to take advantage of the industrial revolution sweeping Britain from the early 1700s. The steel cementation furnace was the last metal production technique used at the site which had had a long history of iron and steel working. Time Team had been invited by English Heritage to investigate Derwentcote's early history, but there was a small problem the site was overgrown with decades of plant growth. This was going to be a challenge.
From the start it was clear that the site would present the team with complex archaeology representing a variety of industrial techniques and building types. With clearance underway this would usually have been an opportunity for John and the geophys team to get cracking but the plants and trees posed a big problem. With the only area available to the survey team being the path cleared to access the site John got to work.
Despite the lack of survey results Phil had to decide on a location for the first trench. Based on maps and plans available and some ruined walls visible in the undergrowth the first trench went in with the aim of identifying the building and hopefully helping us to understand how this part of the site operated. Within minutes rubble and walls begin appearing and Phil soon decided this first trench needed to be a whole lot bigger.
As Phil got to work Stewart began clambering through the bushes in an attempt to understand the lumps and bumps all over the site. Stewarts work demonstrates the huge effort and reorganization of resources that took place to make the site a success. An artificial water course was created by diverting the flow of the river Derwent towards a dam. This created a millpond meaning that water could be released in a controlled way enabling the powering of a water wheel. This power could be used to run bellows or hammers all vital parts of an industrial site.
Back in the first trench Phil was a happy man. Evidence of a large brick structure began to emerge and Phil soon got down to a brick floor could we have been in the heart of a furnace? Phil tried to figure out what the building had been used for by continuing to clear away rubble - suddenly water began pouring into the trench. Phil had cracked culvert running through the building - time to break out the emergency pump. Meanwhile, John and his team had completed their survey of the pathway without a lot to show for it. Their results indicated that the site was covered in... the debris from metal working hardly surprising really. Suffice to say Derwentcote doesn't rank in John's top ten Time Team sites... The team decided to extend the investigation to take in some ruins that may have been part of a dam. As this trench expanded it appeared that buildings here were at least partially constructed using slag (waste material) from a furnace on site. The team discovered a charcoal store and finds suggested the structure could date from the 1650s.
After a lengthy session with a water pump Phil was confident he was able to identify the building he'd found a crucible furnace. This building would have been used to produce 'clean steel' by melting steel bars with carbon in a crucible pot. This would have removed impurities from the steel bars producing high quality metal. The cleared trench reveals a beautiful brick floor, a row of crucible bays and even fused bricks demonstrating the intense heat that would have been created in the heart of the furnace.
This final discovery, along with Stewarts work and Phil's battle with the water filled crucible furnace pushed back the origins of the site further than we could have hoped. The project allowed us an insight into the evolution of this early industrial site and a window into the metallurgical revolution that shaped the modern world.
