Park Gate Iron and Steel Company
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The Park Gate Iron and Steel Company was situated in Parkgate on a triangular site bounded on two sides by the main Rotherham to Barnsley road (A633) and the North Midland Railway 's main line between Rotherham and Cudworth.
[edit] History
Records, dating from 1823, show the establishment of a Parkgate Ironworks by Sanderson and Watson. This was sited at the junction of Rotherham Road and Taylors Lane with part of the works facing on to the Greasbrough Canal. Over the years, along with the business changing hands several times, an expansion was made over Rotherham Road to the Park Gate site, which continued until the 1970's. It was recorded, in 1854, that Samuel Beal & Company produced the cast iron armour plating for Isambard Kingdom Brunel's famous steamship the SS Great Eastern.
From 1864 the works were known as the Park Gate Iron Company and a change of name, by 1888, represented a slight shift in its manufacturing base.
By 1908 the works had gone over entirely to steel production and until 1946 its main products were steel ingots intended for further processing, in particular steel plate and armour plate for the shipbuilding industry and solid bar products ranging from 3/8" to 9 1/2". The company also produced sectional shapes and in particular arches and props for the mining industry.
[edit] Iron and Steel making plant
By 1960 the main site covered some 370 acres and the new Roundwood site, adjacent to the Midland Railway's main line to the north of the main works, and covering a further 220 acres, was coming on stream. The plant at that time included two mechanically charged blast furnaces feeding 10 open hearth steel making furnaces which, in turn fed two primary mills for rolling blooms and billets and 5 finishing mills rolling a wide range of solid bars. The new Roundwood side was occupied by an 11 inch Continuous Bar Mill. capacity at the time was around 425,000 tons of carbon, low alloy and free-cutting steel and ingots.
The company was nationalised in 1948 along with most of the other U.K.'s bulk steel producers. In 1956 the company was taken over by the Tube Investments group and major development work was planned for a site at Aldwarke, to come on stream in the 1960's. This included 'Kaldo' process 'Basic Oxygen Steelmaking' Plant which was fed from the blast furnace plant, ladles being transferred by rail between the sites. This development also included hot rolling facilities. In 1976 rolling capacity was increased with the coming on stream of the Thrybergh Bar Mill.
[edit] Rail Connections
All the sites, except the original which was able to utilise the Greasbrough Canal, have been rail connected. The Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway opened its 1/2 mile long Park Gate branch, to serve the works, in August 1873. The branch left the main line about 1/2 mile south of Parkgate & Aldwarke station and passed below the Midland line. Iron ore arrived here, this being brought from the Grantham area.
The Midland Railway had connections adjacent to Parkgate and Rawmarsh station which served sidings adjacent to the blast furnace plant, iron ore arriving here from the quarries in Northamptonshire.
Connections to the present site are maintained either through the 'New Yard', adjacent to the M.S.& L.R. line near Parkgate and Aldwarke station, or directly into the 10" mill from the Midland line at Aldwarke Junction.
The works has had an internal rail system from its early days and this now takes traffic from the 'New Yard' throughout the site. In the late 1950's the system was dieselised and the company took delivery of 10 four-coupled locomotives from Brush Traction of Loughborough. These were joined in the mid-1960's by six six-coupled locomotives, again from Brush. Although the network has been cut back over the years there is enough work to warrant its service. The Parkgate fleet was joined by some locomotives from the Rotherham Works (Steel, Peach and Tozer) on it closure, including examples from the Yorkshire Engine Company of Sheffield.
