Hi Howard,
Many thanks for the website link to this article which appeared in the Penny
Magazine in 1844. It is very interesting, especially to the few of us who
at present are urgently fighting to try and get the Furnace Bank at the
former Butterley Engineering derelict industrial site at Butterley Hill,
Ripley (as many people probably
know the company went into liquidation in March, 2009) either scheduled or
listed, along with other stone buildings (9 I think) remaining on the site.
At present there are two Listed Grade 2 stone buildings, one of which, the
hexangonal Gate House was where the LAST Rioters in England (from the nearby
village of Pentrich) stopped to demand arms and were refused and sent on
their way to Ripley en route for Nottingham by the Company's manager in
June, 1817. They were subsequently arrested, imprisoned and two (I think -
from memory) of them were executed in Derby.
The present situation is that two planning applications were submitted to
Amber Valley Borough Council by the present site owner, for
the development of the site into private housing and a light industrial
estate. Planning consent was refused in April, 2009; no further planning
applications were submitted, but a Section 80 Notice under the Building
Act, 1984 was applied for by the site owner to AVBC's Building Control
Services Department to demolish the steel sheds on the site, this was
granted and demolition work started on the site early in November. This
demolition work is almost complete. We are now fighting to save more of
the stone buildings within the curtilage of the two Listed Grade 2 buildings
that remain unlisted, also the Furnace Bank and for them to be incorporated
into future planning proposals for the site. Seeing the speed of how the
steel buildings have been demolished means that we have to act fast.
If anyone is interested in seeing excellent photographs of the steel
buildings being demolished and the effects of individuals in trying
to get some of the stone buildings saved before it's too late please go to
the following website:-
http://aditnow.co.uk
Click on "Mine Exporation Forum", then click on "Midlands", then click on
the topic "Butterley Engineering...The Scrapman Cometh". I hope you don't
mind Howard, but I put the website address for the article in the "Penny
Magazine" that you supplied on this forum, as it is so interesting. Not
everyone on Aditnow website subscribes to mining-history and could have
missed it.
I apologise for bringing this subject onto the List if it is considered off
topic. However, the Butterley Company was such a large company in the
Ripley, Codnor, Heanor area from the late 1700's to the present day,
employing thousands of people in their foundries, coal mines, ironstone
mines etc and was a major part of the backbone of the social history of that
area. Many items were constructed at the works and exported all over the
world and are still in use today. Look at the magnificent spanned roof of
St. Pancreas Station now the Eurostar station, also the Albert Suspension
Bridge (in which Andrew Handyside's foundry from Derby were also involved)
over the river Thames in London. The firm manufactured the ironwork of the
High Peak Railway, also the Cromford Canal - in fact the Cromford Canal
Tunnel which is still intact lies beneath the delerict industrial site, it
had a loading bay for manufactured goods to be shipped out through the
Cromford Canal. I believe the last major steel works to be manufactured by
the Butterley Engineering Company were the Falkirk Wheel and the Spinnaker
Tower at Portsmouth, Hampshire.
Happy New Year to you Howard (and of course the rest of the List).
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