Brymbo Steel is a former works in the village of Brymbo near Wrexham in North Wales. It began as an ironworks in the late 1700’s and became a steelworks around a century later with the advancements of the industrial revolution, and is significant on account of its founder, having one of a modest number of surviving blast furnace stacks. The works was founded by John 'Iron Mad' Wilkinson who built a blast furnace on the site in 1793, just after he bought Brymbo Hall. He pioneered the manufacture of cast iron during the Industrial Revolution and he also invented a precision boring machine used to make cast iron cylinders, such as those used in steam engines. After Wilkinson's death, his estate was contested between his natural children and legitimate heirs and the works passed through various hands. By 1841, it passed to the Brymbo Iron Co, and with the production of steel the business was incorporated as Brymbo Steel Co. Ltd. It was nationalised with the rest of the steel industry in 1967, becoming a division of British Steel Corporation. The works were served by the Wrexham and Minera Branch of the Great Western Railway, later of British Railways, and the steelworks lasted until 1990 when it was closed for good. At its peak in the early 1900s the sprawling site employed about 2,500 people, but by 1990 this has vastly reduced and 1,100 jobs were lost, still managing to send Brymbo village into a depression and sending many residents into the negative equity trap.
Brymbo ironworks in full operation following the recent introduction of steelcasting in 1890
Today, there are two remaining cupola stacks - iron shelled furnaces used to melt pig-iron for casting.
A section of the old foundry, most of which is now in ruin having originated from the early 1800s.
Brymbo was the first steelworks to use oxygen for pre-refining blast furnace metal. A defining moment for the steel industry during the industrial revolution.
The remains of the old agents house, on what is now the upper most level of the foundry.
Only a fraction of the original site now remains which once dominated 2 square miles of the village, almost single-handedly fueling the economy for more than two centuries.
Men and women from all over the region were employed here through generations. Not just steelworkers themselves but also office staff - photographed here in the early 1960s.
One of the most common vehicles found on site once the production had been modernised was the Euclid R50, this early 1970s model is the only one left of almost a hundred that once transported raw material across this huge site.
This image taken in the early 1980s shows how many of them there still were despite the site having already vastly reduced its workload.
