White Coal Kiln Froggatt Wood, Longshaw Estate

Summary

White Coal Kiln Froggatt Wood

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Monument Types

Description

To the S of the smelting-house is a platform whose N and W sides are revetted in stone. This is likely to have been used for the storage and loading of ore and fuel. No indications of a cover- building survive.

E of this feature, beyond the existing field wall, there is a white-coal kiln whose plan resembles those of examples recently found to the E of the gritstone ridge.

The air intake faces W, down the slope, and the key-hole-plan interior is revetted in stone. Unusually, there is a spine wall of substantial stones, supporting stone bars bridging each half of the kiln. Two bars remain in position, but exploration in the vicinity has revealed the rest of the original ten. The function of such kilns is almost certain to be the production of 'white- coal' the dried wood used in Derbyshire ore-hearths. The wood could be stacked on the cross-bars and a fire lit beneath. The scatters of ash to the W of the flue contain coal-ash, which, although not uncommon at sites on the E side of the gritstone ridge, towards the coal-measures, is remarkable on the W, where only rare traces of coal ore found above the gritstone.

Between the kiln and the platform, a way through the enclosure wall appears to have been blocked. This is more easily made out on the west face, and suggests that there was once a track from the kiln to the platform. It also indicates that this enclosure dates from the time of the smelter, a conclusion supported by the integration of this wall and the revetment at the E end of the smelting house. The outer enclosure wall, is concentric with the inner, although it has no structural association with the smelting-complex, apart from crossing the northerly stream close to its diversion towards the pond.

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