It may not seem it in this in this leafy, wooded car park but Grosmont ironworks was once a thriving hub of industrial production. Check out the intriguing interpretation model and board by the remains of the ironwork kilns.
It may be hard to believe today, but the Esk Valley area was once home to a thriving ironstone mining industry during the Industrial Revolution. The Grosmont ironworks, built in 1862, were a core part of this and were a major industrial complex producing nearly 1,000 tonnes of pig iron a week. They were constructed to cater for the demand of the many ironstone mines in the area, such as the nearby Murkside and Esk Valley mines on the Rail Trail route. The Grosmont ironworks were demolished in 1891 but it took another 50 years for all the slag to be removed, much of it recycled for use in road building. The third blast furnace added at the Grosmont ironworks partly survives to this day as an intriguing base and can be seen next to the Land of Iron project (2017-2021) interpretation board and model of how the area used to look.