Continuing Our Theme of Foundries at Newport

Friday, Facts & Fotos 2

Continuing our theme of foundries at Newport – it is important to remember that many buildings changed their function over the decades as Newport expanded and new facilities were built. One comment last week stated that the building where the Kirkstall steam hammer & crane was actually the blacksmith’s shop. Well that all depends what year you are referring to, or maybe the time you were working there. One drawing we have calls it a store, another dated 1932 calls it a forge. Various drawings also show it considerably changed in size. So buildings were constantly being changed to meet immediate needs. Many recent visitors to Newport may have seen the huge array of hammers and machinery in 10 Road in West block. This is also called a ‘smithy’ (blacksmith) shop on many plans. There was also a huge foundry on the site of the recently demolished Tech College on the west side of Shae St. On our 1932 drawing it is called New Foundry 1913. Then just north of the Champion Rd gate and water tower the first building now occupied by the ‘Fire Services Museum’ was the foundry for all non-ferrous castings – wheel bearings, injectors, door handles etc. Then further over to the east on the Downer lease is what is called building 41 the ‘New Foundry’. I don’t know much foundry work is still done there, but the Doring report of 1988 lists quite a bit of foundry equipment still there on site. 34 pages of this report list all the foundry equipment still there on the Newport site in 1988. So Newport urgently needs a complete, thorough, archaeological listing of everything that is still there so that a typical foundry of 100 years ago can be recreated possibly around the Kirkstall steam hammer & crane. Even in the early eighties when Newport was far from it’s peak, the foundry’s at Newport were still producing on average 300 tons of castings per day. That is the weight equivalent of 1 1/2 ‘R class’ locos per day.