Monument Type(s):

• BONE MILL (Early 19th century to Early 20th century (pre-war) - 1800 AD to 1913 AD)
• FERTILIZER WORKS (Early 19th century to Early 20th century (pre-war) - 1800 AD to 1913 AD)
• LEAD SMELTER (Early 19th century - 1800 AD to 1837 AD)

Summary

The site of a 19th to 20th century fertilizer works.

Related records

Associated Finds: None recorded

Associated Events

• ESA9984 - 2022 DBA and building survey of The Old Bone Mill, Maesbury Marsh by Richard K Morriss (Ref: 22/03679/FUL; 23/02975/FUL)

Description

Bone and Manure Works beside and probably served by the Shropshire Union Canal (Montgomeryshire Branch) (927) <1>

Open space. Buildings, uses not indicated. Unclear from map whether historic building(s) have survived. <2><3>

In Maesbury Marsh there is a reference to a Smelting Site on the site of a later Bone and Manure works. These works produced crushed bone and later, superphosphate fertilizer. These, plus imported guano and nitrates challenged the position of lime as a soil conditioner from the mid-1840s, and had virtually displaced it by 1900. Bone and manure works is shown on the 1875 Ordnance Survey map. It was established in the 1860s by Edward Richards. It is shown on the 1902 Ordnance Survey map as reduced to a single building, following its abandonment in 1892 when the business moved to the Rednal Canal Wharf (PRN 06660). <4>

Photographed in 1997. <5>

Artificial manure works for Edward Richards. 1860s; two storeys, with tall round stone chimney. The works closed in 1892.<6>

Interesting range of outbuildings facing pub yard. "Boneworks". The nearby chimney (with lozenge patterned picked out in contrasting bricks) and workshop buildings are relics of the late 19th century bone manure factory (fragmentary remains of earlier smelting works too). Good. Private. <7>

Rare example of a nineteenth century superphosphate works that used the process patented in 1842 by Sir John Lawes (1814-1900) in which bones (or, where available, coprolites) were ground and mixed with sulphuric acid, at first in brick-lined pits, to produce superphosphate (calcium dihydrogen phosphate, Ca(H2PO2)2). There were about 80 small works in Britain by 1870, of which six were in Shropshire. The mill at Maesbury is the only one of which there are substantial remains. It was established about 1860 by Edward Richards, a Welshman who had previously worked in Liverpool, and continued in production until the early 1890s when the business moved to Rednal. The availability of superphosphates considerably increased the productivity of English agriculture from the mid-nineteenth century. The mill is illustrated in Industrial Archaeology of Shropshire [<9>]. ->

-> The mill had a succession of industrial uses. Before the building of the bone mill there was a small lead smelter on the site. It appears to have been used to smelt the relatively small amounts of lead ore produced in mines on Llanymynech Hill and its modest scale is indicated by the labour force recorded on the 1861 census, just three furnacemen, all born in the Pontesbury area. A 46m high chimney demolished in 1892 appears to have been part of the smelter rather than the bone mill. <8>

Decision taken not to list. A bone mill dating to the 1860s, converted to other industrial use in the late-C19 and C20. ->

-> MATERIALS: brick walls with a slate roof to the main building. The north-eastern lean-to is in brick, and the most recent, north-western addition is timber and metal framed. Both of these additions have corrugated metal roofs. ->

-> PLAN: the main building is rectangular, under a pitched roof with gables to the south-west and north-east. There are two sections projecting north-west of the centre of the building: one (contemporary with the main building) under a catslide to the west, and the other, east of the catslide, a later addition lean-to under a mono-pitch roof. There is a larger lean-to addition spanning the whole north-east elevation of the main building which meets the originally detached chimney.->
Around 6m to the north-west of the main building are the remains of part of the former leadworks. These consist of a single wall running south-east from an almost rectangular store room which has its shorter sides to the north and south. ->

-> EXTERIOR: the main building has brick walls in English bond, the lean-to to the north-east is brick in English garden wall bond. The main building is single-storey with attic space. Its long side walls have a dentil detail at eaves level. Openings are treated very simply under segmental arch lintels formed by a single course of rowlock faced bricks. Doors are of simple plank design, windows have no cills. The chimney is built in brick with a circular footprint which rises to eaves level where it chamfers in, from this point it tapers to its circular stone cap. On the south-west facing side of the chimney shaft, two diamond patterns are picked out in yellow brick.->

-> The south-western gable end elevation of the main building is solid, though at ground floor level a double width doorway appears to have been inserted under a concrete lintel, then bricked up. Above this in the gable is a central vertical opening under a segmental arch lintel flanked by two horizontal openings under flat, thin timber lintels, all of these openings are bricked up. Also visible is the side elevation to the smithy under the catslide running north-west where there is single door under a concrete lintel. ->

-> The south-east elevation has a large central window divided into narrow lights by vertical glazing bars under a thick timber lintel with a doorway to either side. North of the main building is the side of the eastern lean-to which is open except for a low wall to the north. ->

-> The north-eastern elevation is obscured by a later lean-to to its lower part. This lean-to is solid except for a metal framed window at its south end. The gable end above the lean-to is solid. ->

-> At its west end, the north-western elevation has a doorway, then moving east a projection under a long catslide roof lit by a three-light window. East of this is a lightly built, lower-height single-storey lean-to under a mono-pitch corrugated iron roof which encloses the doorway to the central room of the original building. Above this is a blocked window opening, the top of which meets the eaves. Further east is a window, then the solid side elevation of the north-eastern lean-to addition. ->

-> INTERIOR: the main building is divided into three rooms. A lean-to spans the north-east elevation. The smithy is attached under the catslide to the north-west with a light timber framed addition east of the smithy which acts as large porch to the central of the three main rooms. Currently each room has its own access and cannot be reached from another. ->

-> The westernmost room is the largest and has a brick floor. It has an iron column in the centre which supports a heavy beam which would have carried a mezzanine floor over the south-western half of the room, part of which survives to the western corner. There are two blocked arched openings in the north-eastern wall to the central room. The southern corner has been partitioned off to form a small room with a concrete floor, an inserted ceiling and its own external access in the south-east elevation. The central room has a concrete floor and a large window to the south-east. It has a mezzanine floor over its north-western end. Its north-eastern wall has a blocked doorway to the eastern room at its south end, and a blocked window at its northern end. ->

-> The eastern room has a formerly external timber framed window looking into the lean-to which now encloses it to the north-east. The concrete floor has a flat-bottomed channel running from the north wall then turning at right angles through the north-east wall to the lean-to. The lean-to has a brick floor, and a concrete lined opening at ground level which follows through from the channel in the floor of the eastern room of the main building. The smithy has traces of a hearth and hood in its eastern corner and a concrete floor. The open sided structure east of the smithy also has a concrete floor. ->

-> SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: a part of the earlier lead smelting site survives around 6m north-west of the main building. This consists of the south wall of an otherwise demolished room which is attached to a small irregularly shaped brick storeroom with a mono-pitch corrugated metal roof. <10> <11>

Sources

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