Welcome to the Industrial Heritage Networks and Support website. This site is maintained and updated by the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust who run the project and the networks. We aim to support industrial heritage in England through networking, information exchange, guidance, and training. Please explore the website and please contribute! For more information you can … Read more Welcome to the IHNs website!
The latest round of online Industrial Heritage Network (IHN) meetings will be taking place online over the summer. These free biannual network meetings, covering ten areas in England, began 2018. Since 2020 one meeting per year has been online. The theme for the current round of meetings will be maintenance and skills.
Funded through a grant by Historic England, and run by the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust (IGMT), these forums offer a chance for industrial heritage groups and museums to meet regionally and share common experinces with other sites and people in managing our rich industrial heritage. The dates for the summer round of online meetings is as follows:
Wednesday 19th June – London
Wednesday 26th June – North West
Wednesday 3rd July – South West
Monday 8th July – East Midlands
Wednesday 10th July – West Midlands
Monday 15th July – East of England
Tuesday 16th July – Yorkshire
Monday 22nd July – Cornwall & Devon
Wednesday 26th June – North East
Thursday 25th July – South East
Each meeting will start at middaly and last up to one and half hours. IHN members willbe emailed details on how to join by the networks welcome anyone intertetd in learnignmore about the industrial archaeology and heritage of a region. Contact the IHSO, Dr Michael Nevell, at IGMT for more details be email: mike.nevell@ironbridge.org.uk
The Essex Industrial Archaeology Group biennial Industrial Heritage Fair will take place on 14th September at the Grange Barn, in Coggeshall, 10am to 4pm. This event is running in partnership with the National Trust and is part of Heritage Open Days 2024.
There will be exhibits by Essex societies and industrial sites covering such industries as: agricultural engineering; public water supply; brick-making; metal windows; company villages. There will also be an exhibition of woodcarving tools used by local master carver Bryan Saunders until his death in 1975. The Saunders Collection is a fascinating goldmine of chisels, hammers, knives, measuring devices and other carving tools.
In addition, there are four short talks on local industries including the cloth trade and metal working, and attendees can take a self-guided tour of industrial sites in Coggeshall, including former maltings & breweries, textile factories, and the isinglass factory. Coggeshall Museum, Abbey Watermill, and the Village Smithy will also be open.
The Etruria Industrial Musuem is once more running its popular, family friendly, festival on 1st and 2nd June. This year’s theme is ’50th Anniversary of the Reopening of the Caldon Canal to Navigation’. The two day festival will feature a gathering of historic and interesting narrow boats moored along the Caldon Canal, Shirley’s 1857 Potters’ Mill in steam, music, dance, arts events and more.
Open daily from 11.00am to 5.00pm daily the event includes:
Historic Canal BoatsÂ
Entertainment and Music
Street food, Tea room and Beer tent
Puppetry and Performance
Craft Demonstrations and Stalls
Children’s Games and Activities
Shirley’s Victorian Potters’ Mill in Steam (12.30 to 4.30pm)
Blacksmith Demonstrations in the Forge
Entrance to the festival is free but there is acharge for access to Shirley’s Bone and Flint Mill.
The latest exhibition by the Wandle Industrial Musuem opens on 9th June 2024. ‘Our Leather Industries’ looks at the history of leather making and some of the products produced in the Wandle Valleyin the 19th and 20th centuries.
The exhibition can be found at the Vestry Hall Annexe, London Road, Mitcham, Surrey. Open on Wednesdays, 1-4pm and Sundays 2-5pm, the exhibtion is free to enter.
The deadline for the Industrial Heritage Sites in England Survey 2024 has been extended to the 14th June. The Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust and Heritage Innovation are undertaking this survey of the c.600 publicly accessible and protected industrial heritage sites in England. Funded by Historic England, the 2024 survey is gathering data on these sites which will be compared with similar reports undertaken in 2008 and 1998.
The original deadline for response was the 10th May, but in order to capture as many replies as possible we have decided to extend the deadline and will continue to accept responses until 14th June. We hope this will allow as many sites as possible to take part in the once-in-a- generation survey. This work is being carried out by Heritage Innovation, https://heritageinnovation.org/, and can be accessed here:
The questionnaire will take around 15-30 minutes to complete. Please do drop the project a line if you need any support to complete the survey. If you require this questionnaire in an alternative format or have any questions about the survey please let us know at IHSO@ironbridge.org.uk. For general queries contact Zoe Arthurs via email on zoearthursheritage@gmail.com or call 07581 405835.Â
Join textile artist and London National Park City Ranger Elly for a walk along South London’s River Wandle. The Wandle was a heavily industrialised river in the 18th and 19th centuries and was declared “dead” in the 1960s. It has been restored to life over the last 50 years and is now a beautiful chalk stream habitat and home to a wide variety of wildlife.Â
Travel back in time as you travel along the Wandle Trail and find out about the Wandle’s rich history as a site of textile production, and how this history is a microcosm of the global textile industry today. Learn about the challenges that the Wandle faces from single use plastic pollution and wastewater discharges, and how local activists have been working to improve this environment for years. The walk will take you from restored chalk stream to culverted urban river, from new housing developments to National Trust gardens, from modern industry to the repurposed buildings of the Liberty Print Works.
Start at 11am at Hackbridge Community Gardens, Nightingale Road, Carshalton SM5 2EN. Nearest station: Hackbridge (Southern, Thameslink)
Finish 1pm at Merton Abbey Mills, Watermill Way, London SM19 2RD. Nearest Station: Colliers Wood (Northern Line)
Access: this walk is over flat terrain, and most of the footpaths have hard surfaces. There are some sections that haven’t been surfaced and these can become muddy in wet weather so please wear appropriate footwear. There are toilets at the LIDL opposite Hackbridge station, at Morden Hall Park and Merton Abbey Mills.
The 6th East-West Workshop on Industrial Archaeology, sponsored by the Association for Industrial Archaeology, brings together historians and archaeologists from the UK, China, and Brazil to examine the ruins of industry as sources of information (archaeological evidence), inspiration and aesthetic experiences. The workshop delves into the ancient and modern ruins of industry as particular archaeological sites that allow, and demand, different explorations. It will take place online on 11 May 2024, 10.00-12.00 GMT.
The East-West series of workshops aims to exchange ideas and knowledge among Western and Eastern colleagues to build a more international and diverse industrial archaeology. The activity is organised jointly by the Institute for Cultural Heritage and History of Science & Technology (USTB, China), the UK Association for Industrial Archaeology, and its Young Members Board. The speakers will be:
Hilary ORANGE (Swansea University, Wales): “Stuff Kicked Underfoot – The Surfaces of Industrial Ruination”
Xianping GAO (University of Science and Technology Beijing, China): “Excavating the Ruins of the Chinese Porcelain Industry: The Luomachiao Kiln Site in Jingdezhen”
Guilherme POZZER (University of Sheffield, England): “Words in Ruins: Sensorial, Affective and Creative Approaches to the Ruins of Industry”
The Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society are holding their annual conference on 11th May 2024. The theme is new research, with a focus on local history, family history, and industrial archaeology. It will be held at the friend’s Meeting House, Mount Street, Manchester, M2 5NS from 10am to 3pm.
The talks will include presentations Helen Corlett talking about The Cooper at Old Bridge End: Finding a Place in Early 19c Manchester (a micro study of the experience of an artisan-tradesman family migrating to Manchester from the rural north); Neil Coldrick on Medieval Ironworking in Holcombe Valley; and Kelly Griffiths discussing Scuttled: Excavations on the Historic Canal Basin in Rochdale (looking at excavating late 19th century canal boats).
The conference is free to members of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society and the Manchester Local Family History Society, but donations are gratefully accepted. The fee for non members is £12.00 payable to Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society. Please email secretary@landcas.org.uk to book your place.
A canal boat being excavated at Rochdale.
Medieval bloomery during excavation at Holcombe in 2018.
Booking is now open for a major conference at Ironbridge looking at the life, work, and legacy of L T C Rolt on the 10th May 2024. L T C Rolt, also known as Tom, was a renowned practical engineer and prolific author who wrote books and articles on industrial history, canals, railways, and cars as well as fiction. Rolt was an early supporter of the work of the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust and is regarded as one of the founders of the 20th century waterways and railway preservation movements. He was also involved in helping to establish the Association for Industrial Archaeology.
To mark the 50th anniversary of his death, Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust has partnered with academics from Keele University to host a conference on Friday 10th May which will celebrate his life and the continuing legacy of his work. There will also be conference-related events on the 9th and 11th May.
The Working Industrial & Mobile Heritage (WIMH) platform is being developed by umbrella organisations from throughout the industrial and mobile heritage sector in Europe. The European Route of Industrial Heritage (ERIH) is one of the partners in this project. The group is appealing to ERIH members and other industrial heritage sites in the UK for help in collecting evidence to protect a hugely important element of our industrial museums across Europe – their heritage in operation.Other partners currently include: TICCIH – The International Committee for Conservation of the Industrial Heritage; FEDECRAIL – Federation of European Museum & Tourist Railways; FIVA – Federation Internationale des Vehicules Anciens; and the Europa Nostra Industrial & Engineering Heritage Committee.
The working industrial and mobile heritage sector embraces historic machinery at industrial heritage sites and museums, railways, steam ships, road vehicles, and aviation. These all constitute a “social testimony” which ensures that the essential “know how” for the operation of steam powered machinery and combustion engines should not be lost for future generations. Cultural heritage enriches the lives of people and plays a role in enhancing Europe’s social capital. Our sector is also an important resource for economic growth, employment and social cohesion. Working industrial and mobile heritage depends on the continued and limited availability of fossil fuels, like coal and oil-based derivatives. Such fuels remain necessary for the dynamics of heritage machines and vehicles.
As set out in in the 2014 document “Towards an Integrated Approach to Cultural Heritage for Europe”, the European Union is committed to promoting industrial heritage. Our sector is currently facing certain challenges, such as reliance on a limited availability of fossil fuels. The European Union, and other national governments such as the UK throughout Europe, need to take a balanced approach to the almost negligible environmental impact of limited fossil fuel usage by the sector and the legitimate objective of preserving this heritage. For example, assisted also by retaining a continued source of suitable coal at a location within Europe.
A key task of the WIMH partnership is to try to gather as much data as possible of the current annual consumption of our sector, especially of coal but also historic oil based fuels. Considerable efforts have already been made in particular by the railway heritage sector in several countries, including the UK, and research is being undertaken by the historic road transport sector.
Who should respond?
Working from this foundation, the next steps are to build up a picture of at least approximate fossil fuel usage from the industrial heritage sector. This survey is for museums and heritage sites for whom fossil fuel power is needed for continued operation of pumps and industrial machines which form such an important part of the interpretation to the public at our sites. Not only coal-fired boilers and equipment, but also other machinery which operate with petrol, diesel, or other traditional oil based fuels. Follow this link to fill in the survey:
Industrial Heritage Networks 