Open Day at Wortley Top Forge for all of the family
Date: 12 Sep 2009
WORTLEY Top Forge will be open, free of charge on Saturday September 12, from 11am to 4pm, as part of the national programme of Heritage Open Days.
It is Britains last surviving water powered heavy iron forge. For centuries its waterwheels worked hammers which forged red hot iron into shape.
It has been restored over many years by teams of volunteers. Come and watch the wheels turn and imagine the noise, the heat and the danger. Just think what it was like to live there!
Visitors will be given a guided tour. They will see the waterwheels working and ancient machinery.
New for this year is a working blowing engine based on one that was invented at the forge in 1771.
Wortley Top Forge is a Scheduled Ancient Monument and a Grade 1 Listed Building. It has three working waterwheels, and two tilt hammers which were used to forge iron.
The buildings and grounds houses collection of stationary steam engines and other machines, some of which will be run with compressed air or electricity.
Wortley Top Forge is by the river Don, on side roads to the west of the A629 Sheffield Huddersfield road. Turn off just south of Wortley village, or at the traffic lights in Thurgoland.
