Summary
Steam-powered workshop building, a key component of Elsecar Central Workshops, the complex built in the 1850s to serve Earl Fitzwilliam’s collieries. In 2020 in use as a printers workshop and office.
Reasons for Designation
The former joiners’ shop (including chimney and rebuilt boiler house) at Elsecar Central Workshops, Building 22, 1850s, at Elsecar Heritage Centre, is listed at Grade II* for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* for a functional, industrial building the well-dressed external stonework and other detailing demonstrates particular attention to its architecture;
* the building retains a number of iron and timber fittings internally related to its industrial use;
* the boiler chimney, the only survivor on site, is a prominent landscape feature and clearly indicates that this was originally a steam-powered complex.
Historic interest:
* association with Hartop, Nasmyth and the Earls Fitzwilliam.
Group value:
* a key component of the complex of buildings which formed Elsecar Central Workshops, an early and influential centralised workshop facility, the complex as a whole being a remarkable survival nationally which is of more than special interest.
History
The fifth Earl Fitzwilliam (1786-1857) continued the work of his father (1748-1833) in developing and supporting industrial concerns across his Wentworth-Woodhouse estate. In 1849, Henry Hartop (1785-1865), who had managed Elsecar Ironworks for the Earl from 1843 until it was leased to the Dawes brothers in 1849, suggested the establishment of a centralised workshop complex to service the needs of the estate, especially its collieries. Originally known as the New Yard, this complex was built immediately to the north-west of Elsecar Ironworks, close to Elsecar New Colliery. It was sited adjacent to the interchange between the local waggonway network (which served Milton Ironworks and the Tankersley iron ore pits to the west) and the Elsecar branch of the Dearne and Dove Canal and the recently opened branch line to the South Yorkshire Railway. The canal and railway linked the Central Workshops to Hemingfield Colliery to the north east, allowing Hemingfield’s workshops to be converted into workers’ housing.The Central Workshops were regarded as a showcase by the Fitzwilliams where public events and tours were often held, the fitting shop occasionally used for functions. In 1870 the sixth Earl Fitzwilliam (1815-1902) opened a private railway station for his estate as part of the complex and in 1912 the seventh Earl (1872-1943) hosted a visit by King George V and Queen Mary. Nationalisation in 1947 saw the complex taken over by the National Coal Board. It was acquired by Barnsley Council in the late 1980s and was subsequently restored as Elsecar Heritage Centre.
The Joiner’s Shop, with its integral engine house and attached chimney and boiler house, was part of the original complex, first depicted in 1859. The joinery, a workshop for the construction of timber items, was on the ground floor, the upper floor thought to have been a saddler’s shop, both originally being powered from a steam engine housed within the northern end of the building which may have also powered machinery within the adjoining Fitting Shop. As part of the conversion of the site by Barnsley Council around 1990, the boiler house was completely rebuilt on a slightly smaller footprint as a toilet block.
Elsecar Central Workshops was an early and pioneering industrial complex, prefiguring similar complexes built as the coal mining and other industries became more highly capitalised towards the end of the C19 and into the C20. Hartop employed by the fifth Earl Fitzwilliam, effectively adapted the concept of the model farm to service the industrial needs of the estate. The complex included a Nasmyth steam hammer, invented by Hartop’s son-in-law, the notable Scottish engineer James Nasmyth (1808-1890) who invented and developed a number of workshop machine tools in the mid-C19. Successive Earl Fitzwilliams, who were influential members within the first rank of society and the British Establishment, took pride in showing off their industrial concerns to visitors. Elsecar is thus thought to have been nationally, perhaps even internationally, influential.
Details
Workshop with integral engine house, 1850s for Earl Fitzwilliam. Renovated 1990 as part of Elsecar Heritage Centre.
MATERIALS: well-dressed, coursed sandstone generally with deep horizontal tooling, inner-wall facing in brick. Welsh slate roofs.
PLAN: the northern bay was divided-off internally to form the engine house, now forming a stairwell, the boiler house and chimney being attached to the north. The upper floor is accessed via an external stair to the southern end. The ground floor also accessed at the southern end, but there are also wide-arched opposed entrances in the side walls.
EXTERIOR: the building is of two storeys, being hipped, three bays wide, eight bays long, the northern bay (engine house) being wider, abutting the south-western corner of the Fitting Shop. There are string courses at first-floor and eaves height. Windows are regularly spaced and have slab lintels and projecting sills, most having diamond lattice iron window frames. The arched entrances to the ground floor are basket-arched with voussoirs, the keystone being iron plated, the arches occupy the central three bays of the workshop section of the building. The eastern elevation has a round arched window to the first-floor of the engine house bay, reduced from a doorway. Below is an inserted doorway. Near central to the eastern elevation is an inserted first-floor taking-in door complete with a winch. The southern end elevation has a cantilevered stone staircase leading up to the central first-floor doorway which has a round-arched fanlight. The openings to the ground floor on the eastern side are blocked internally.
INTERIOR: the ground floor retains cast and wrought iron fittings attached to the ceiling beams. Exposed on the upper floor, within the partition wall that divides off the northernmost bay (the former engine house) is a low-set, arched opening that is now blocked (most likely formerly used for a belt or rope drive connected to the engine). Set higher in the same wall to the west is a lever mechanism which may have allowed part of the power-train to be disconnected from the engine. A number of timber hooks are fixed to the exposed queen post roof structure.
SUBSIDIARY ITEMS: the boiler chimney abuts the northern wall of the building, also abutting the nave wall of the adjacent Fitting Shop. This is stone-built and has a tall square base rising to a cornice that is just below the eaves line of the Joiners’ Shop. It then rises as a gently tapering octagonal shaft to a bold, corniced cap. Wrapping around the base of the chimney, in-filling the space between the Joiners’ Shop and the aisle to the Fitting Shop is a single-storey, gabled building that is a toilet block built around 1990 approximating the form of the original boiler house.
