Smeltmill

Smeltmills were water-powered mills used to smelt lead or other metals.

The older method of smelting lead on wind-blown bole hills began to be superseded by artificially-blown smelters. The first such furnace was built by Burchard Kranich at Makeney, Derbyshire in 1554, but produced less good lead than the older bole hill. William Humfrey (the Queen's assay master), and a leading shareholder in the Company of Mineral and Battery Works introduced the ore hearth from the Mendips about 1577. This was initially blown by a foot-blast, but was soon developed into a water-powered smelt mill at Beauchief (now a suburb of Sheffield).

A typical smelt mill had an orehearth and a slaghearth, the latter being used to reprocess slags from the orehearth in order to recover further lead from the slag

Further reading

• L. Willies, 'Lead: ore preparation and smelting' in J. Day and R. F. Tylecote, The Industrial Revolution in Metals (Institute of Metals, London 1991), 93-102.
• Various articles in L. Willies and D. Cranstone (eds.), Boles and Smeltmills (Historical Metallurgy Society, 1992).
• M. B. Donald, Elizabethan Monolopies (Oliver & Boyd Edinburgh 1961), 142-78.
• See also Derbyshire lead mining history.

This industry-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.v · Categories: Metallurgical processes Lead Industry stubs Wikimedia Foundation. 2010. Игры ⚽ Поможем решить контрольную работу Pony Soldiers Cayo Santiago Look at other dictionaries: Watermill — This article is about a type of structure. For other locational uses see Milldam . For details of the technologies, see Water wheel and Mill machinery . A watermill is a structure that uses a water wheel or turbine to drive a mechanical process… …   Wikipedia William Humfrey — (also Humphrey or Humphreys) (d 1579) was a goldsmith and Assay Master to Queen Elizabeth I of England. He had a patent from the Queen for the mining of various ores and the extraction of metals from their ores. These rights were transferred to… …   Wikipedia Milford, Derbyshire — Milford Church Milford is a village in Derbyshire, England, on the River Derwent, between Duffield and Belper on the A6 trunk road. Until the end of the 18th century it was no more than a few houses near the point, about a quarter of a mile… …   Wikipedia Duffield Frith — For other uses, see Duffield (disambiguation) . Duffield Frith was, in medieval times, an area of Derbyshire in England, part of that bestowed upon Henry de Ferrers (or Ferrars) by King William, controlled from his seat at Duffield Castle. From… …   Wikipedia Tuyere — A tuyere is a tube, nozzle or pipe through which air is blown into a furnace or hearth. [W. K. V. Gale, The iron and Steel industry: a dictionary of terms (David and Charles, Newton Abbot 1972), 216 7. ] Air (or oxygen) is injected into a hearth… …   Wikipedia Bole hill — A Bole hill (also spelt Bail hill) was a place where lead was formerly smelted in the open air. The bole was usually situated at or near the top of a hill where the wind was strong. Totley Bole Hill on the western fringes of Sheffield consisted… …   Wikipedia North of England Lead Mining Museum — Coordinates: 54°46′59″N 2°16′23″W / 54.78306°N 2.27306°W / 54.78306; 2.27306 …   Wikipedia 18+ © Academic, 2000-2024 Contact us: Technical Support, Advertising Dictionaries export, created on PHP, Joomla, Drupal, WordPress, MODx. Mark and share Search through all dictionaries Translate… Search Internet Share the article and excerpts Direct link … Do a right-click on the link above and select “Copy Link”