Two New Romano-British Iron-Working Sites in Northamptonshire - A New Type of Furnace?

Abstract

As a result of recent road improvements, two examples of a hitherto unknown type of iron-working furnace have been found in Northamptonshire. These are at Laxton Lodge (SP068971) and Byfield (SP505515), at different ends of the county (FIG. I). Most Romano-British furnaces belong to the shaft type which has a maximum diameter of 0–5 m. The more recently found furnaces are between 1–1.4 m in internal diameter which means that the method of working them must have been quite different from the smaller shaft furnaces.

Iron Production in Uganda: Memories of a Near-forgotten Industry

“…As a consequence, there exists a vast range of variation in the iron technologies that have been developed across the world and through time, in terms of scale, social and political organisation, technique, style, symbolism, which range, for example, from the large wind-powered smelting furnaces in Sri Lanka (Juleff 1996(Juleff , 2009 or small Romano-British shaft furnaces (e.g. Jackson et al 1988), to ceramic-hungry smelts in Mafa, Cameroon (David et al 1989) and crucible steel production in southern India (Srinivasan 1994).…”

ThePraetoriumof Edmund Artis: A Summary of Excavations and Surveys of the Palatial Roman Structure at Castor, Cambridgeshire 1828–2010

“… 353 RCHM 1975, 24; Johnston 1987; Jackson and Ambrose 1978; Jackson and Tylecote 1988; Condron 1997; Schrüfer-Kolb 1999 and 2004. See also Wacher 1986, 170.…”