Made in Castleford

MADE IN

From the geology and geography which have determined its future, to the rich Roman history, prolific industrial and manufacturing periods, to its cultural heritage, crowned by the emergence of Henry Moore as one of the towering figures of 20th Century Art. Our story is of international interest and importance.

This pack has been created as part of a Positive Choices funded project which Castleford Heritage Trust ran at Queen’s Mill, consisting of a series of creative workshops for young people between the ages of 11 and 18.

The project focused on the theme of ‘Made in Castleford’.

It used examples of people, places and products that have been made in Castleford to inspire young people to be proud of their town and their roots, and raise their aspirations towards their own futures.

The theme Made in Castleford has been inspired by a Roman brooch bearing that inscription, and the new research about Roman Castleford being an important manufacturing base, but also applies to much of the town’s industrial history.

Castleford

has a unique story...

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CASTLEFORD HERITAGE TRUST Castleford Heritage Trust was established in 2000, and is a registered charity and a limited company which aims to promote the town’s heritage and culture to build a strong, successful community. We use natural as well as cultural heritage as a vehicle for regeneration and improving educational opportunities. The Trust seeks to improve the local area and knowledge of local heritage in order to improve community esteem, raise the aspirations of our young people and for the general benefit of local people and visitors to Castleford. We have promoted access to our historical and archaeological collections, our waterways, local woodland and other green spaces, and developed educational opportunities and community involvement in natural and industrial heritage projects and celebrations.

QUEEN’S MILL Queen’s Mill will be a high quality community facility providing a unique heritage and arts destination for local communities and visitors from across the region. We will use our heritage and culture for educational and leisure purposes. Under the theme of ‘Made in Castleford’, the building will provide heritage and arts spaces, skills training, cultural industries development initiatives, studio and workshop spaces and business, retail and catering opportunities.

The major features of the heritage attraction will be a working waterwheel generating power for the whole site, and the continuation of stone ground milling on a small scale, providing flour for sale and for a community bakery.

Made in Castleford

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roMAN CAstlEforD Roman Castleford is an extremely important archaeological site.

Between the years 1974 and 2005 archaeologists have excavated over 30 trenches in Castleford.

The most well-known find is the Roman fort of Lagentium. But the archaeologists also found evidence of the civilian settlement and discovered what happened at the site when the Roman army left. Tens of thousands of objects were found. These finds tell the story of the people of Roman Castleford.

Castleford is not just another Roman site. Some of the finds are unique.

The archaeologists found evidence of crafts that have not been found elsewhere in Britain.

Roman Road Fort Vicus

Fig 1

Fig 2

Fig 3

Fig 4

Fig 1 / Artists impression of the Roman settlement.

Fig 2 / Aerial photograph showing the position of the fort and vicus underneath modern Castleford.

Fig 3 / The red areas show where excavation sites in the centre of modern Castleford Fig 4 / A piece of Roman carving displayed in the Castleford museum

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The SitE / Where was Roman Castleford?

Beneath our feet. Modern Castleford has been built over the top of Roman Castleford so there are no Roman buildings to see.

However, the line of the Roman road can still be seen on the map.

The Roman road entered Castleford from the south underneath Beancroft Road. It then ran under Welbeck Street and passed east of All Saints’ Church to cross the river by a ford.

The Romans built a fort to control the river crossing. The fort was in an area now defined by Church Street, Carlton Street, Bradley Street and the river. Archaeologists have also excavated part of the civilian settlement (the Romans called this a vicus).

The main vicus buildings fronted the Roman road in the area of modern Welbeck Street.

Have the archaeologists found all of Roman Castleford?

No. The archaeologists have only been able to dig in areas where new buildings or roads are planned. Usually they only have time or money to dig a part of each site. So there may be more of Roman Castleford in areas where there has been no new building recently.

Finds / What was found?

The excavations produced a huge quantity of finds including: Pottery, Coins, Objects made from metal such as brooches and armour.

Objects made from glass, Brick, tile and plaster, Objects made from stone, Leather and textiles, Objects made from wood, Animal and human bone, seeds and pollen.

How do finds get into the ground?

Many of the finds come from rubbish pits but some objects may have been dropped and lost by accident. Others could have been deliberately buried as an offering as part of a religious ritual.

Why are finds so important?

The finds provide valuable information about the lifestyle of the people who lived and worked in Roman Castleford. They are also important because many can be dated and so show how Castleford changed over the centuries.

Source: www.wakefield.gov.uk

Do you want to know more?

The major excavations carried out in Castleford are fully published by the West Yorkshire Archaeology Service in Roman Castleford: Excavations 1974-1985, Vols 1-3, 1998-2001.

Ordering details are on their website (see Related Links). The West Yorkshire Archaeology Advisory Service holds information on sites in Castleford in the Historic Environment Record and also has information on their website about the Romans in West Yorkshire (see ‘Related Links’).

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INDUSTRIAL HERITAGE GLASS The Romans named Castleford ‘Lagentium’ which translates from Latin as ‘The Place of the Bottles’. An archaeological excavation in Welbeck Street in 1968 identified an industrial area outside the south gate of the ‘vicus’, the roman settlement. This included lots of evidence of glass making from Roman times, dating back nearly 2000 years.

The glass bottle industry grew up in the 19th century and Castleford became the largest glass manufacturing town in Britain. By the 1850’s 20,000,000 glass jars and bottles were produced every year. The earliest glass-works was founded in 1829 at Whitwood Mere, when four glassblowers from Hunslet, Leeds built the Mear Glass Bottle Works close to the river. In 1834 the Aire and Calder Glassworks were built off Wheldon Lane, renamed in 1844 as Breffitts Glassworks, it finally closed down in 1926 following difficulties for a few years.

In 1839 a railway line was built through town and this resulted in the majority of glass-works being built close to it.

The site of the Hightown glass-works was established soon after 1852, but by 1874 it had been demolished and the site was then used to quarry clay for brick making. The site was also used to fire bricks until 1902, when John Lumb & Co bought the site and built a large gas-fired regenerative glass furnace and later the glass-works saw some of the first semi-automatic machines introduced for bottle making. United Glass bought the glass-works in 1937, and at its peak in 1950, 1000 people were employed there. United Glass continued to make glass there until the works closed in 1983.

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The majority of Castleford’s glass output was bottles, but it was a centre for skilled glassblowing so there are a good number of ‘fancy’ pieces as well including witch balls and walking sticks.

In 2007, the Malton Archaeological Projects conducted excavations of the Hightown bottle glass-works and in 2009, the English Heritage research department reported its findings. The excavations had produced vast quantities of materials, including bottles, glass waste, bricks and ceramics, which were analysed and the archives are now housed in the Wakefield Museum. Chemical analysis of the waste materials excavated identified two main phases of glass production.

Phase 1 / between 1855-1872 produced low quality glass, likely to be made from cheap and basic ingredients, evident from the high iron and trace element content. The composition of this glass fits well with the description of ingredients used for bottle glass in the 19th Century. English laws at this time prohibited the use of fine materials for making ordinary bottles and so common river sand and soap boilers’ waste was usually the main ingredients.

The main objective was to produce strong but cheap bottles, with the appearance and colour being less important. Most glass was heavily tinted green due to the presence of iron in the cheap sands used. Even after the Excise laws were repealed, most glass-works continued to use the cheaper materials until the end of 19th Century.

Phase 2 / glass (produced in 20th Century) is soda lime silica glass which has a much purer composition and suggests higher quality ingredients were used, and this is also shown in the much paler colours of glass produced, including some materials that were colourless. The introduction of mechanised processes by John Lumb & Co helped to ensure costs were cut, allowing more expensive ingredients to be used which enabled paler coloured glass to be produced. This met the growing demands of the soft-drinks and mineral water markets for colourless and paler glass production, which had expanded significantly in the late 19th Century.

Sources: 1. Gardner, C, 2009 Hightown, Castleford, Yorkshire: An assessment of glass waste technology report.

English Heritage Research Department.

2. The Borough of Castleford, accessed 12th March 2014. www.castleford.org 3. Castleford Forum Library and Museum, accessed 12th March 2014.

4. Ordinance Survey 1908

Made in Castleford

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INDustrIAl hErItAGE CoAl In geological terms Carboniferous rocks underlie most of the Castleford area and the coal measures are predominantly a shale, mudstone and sandstone series with thin seatearths, a layer of sedimentary rock underlying a coal seam, and coal deposits.

It is the predominance of these rocks that led to Castleford’s growth at the start of the Industrial Revolution.

In the 17th Century coal mining transformed Castleford into an industrial powerhouse. Castleford’s position on the South Yorkshire Coalfield with its excellent transport links made it ideal to supply mills and factories across Yorkshire. Coal also powered Castleford’s other industries including the glass works and potteries.

1903 onstration Miners Dem

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Although there had been mining in Castleford since the early 16th century, deep mining as we know it only commenced in the late 19th Century.

The first deep mine colliery, Wheldale, opened in 1868 followed closely by the sinking of the Merefield Colliery in 1869, which later became the Glasshoughton Colliery. Fryston Colliery followed in the early 1870’s and Fryston village was built to house the miners in 1890. Life was hard for the miners, coal strikes against cuts in wages, together with poor working conditions and pay took their toll, but the spirit of comradeship prevailed.

Aire Street, Castleford, 1903.

Miners’ Demonstrations or marches were preceded by a parade of colliery banners. These demonstrations later became annual galas.

At the time of this photograph, Wheldale and Fryston Colliery were in the middle of a protracted strike over enforced reduction in pay.

During World War 2 coal not only kept people warm but powered industry, railways and shipping. After the loss of French and Belgian coalfields to the Allied war effort, the coalfields in England and Wales became even more important. In 1945, there were no fewer than 10 collieries in and around Castleford, including: Ackton Hall (Featherstone), Allerton Bywater, Fryston, Glasshoughton, Ledston Luck, Newmarket Silkstone (lower Altofts), Prince of Wales (Pontefract), St John’s (Normanton), Wheldale, and Whitwood.

For over a century thousands of people in the Wakefield district relied upon the mining industry for work. Gradually fewer and fewer pits were deemed safe and financially viable until the last pit in the district, the Prince of Wales at Pontefract, closed in 2002.

Since then industry has left its own mark on the surrounding area, the most notable of all is the formation of Fairburn Ings nature reserve.

This important wetland area was formed by subsidence caused by coal mining and now houses a RSPB visitor centre to help with the conservation of flora, fauna and wildlife, most notably birds. Following the decline of heavy industry at the end of the 20th century, improvements to water and air quality are helping some species to thrive again. Birds, fish, mammals and insects, and the places that they live, need to be protected so that they can be enjoyed by us and future generations.

Sources: 1. Wakefield M.D.C., accessed 12th March 2014. www.wakefield.gov.uk 2. Castleford Forum Library and Museum, accessed 12th March 2014.

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MILLING Bread has been an essential part of daily life since Castleford was first settled, 2000 years ago, and the milling of flour has taken place in the town over the same period. Watermills, dating from the twelfth century at least, were established on both sides of the River Aire in Castleford. In mediaeval days the Crown owned them, mainly for milling wheat.

Monarchs who looked for new sources of income began to sell off their mills to private entrepreneurs. In Castleford they were disposed of in 1615 and eventually became the property of the Bland family of Kippax Park.

Some years after the Aire and Calder Navigation was cut in 1700, the Navigation Undertakers purchased the mills, leasing them to tenants. This lasted until 1948 when the surviving Queen’s Mill was taken back into public ownership, becoming part of the British Transport Commission under the Docks and Waterways Executive.

In 1962 it came under the ownership of British Waterways.

The current mill is the world’s largest stone ground flour mill – not because of its size, but due to its twenty pairs of grinding stones. Built in 1898, and named Queen’s Mill in honour of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, it was later taken over by Allinson’s. Dr Allinson had pioneered healthy eating, and saw flour ‘with nowt taken out’ as a key part of a healthy diet.

Remarkably the undershot waterwheel remains in position. It is twenty feet in diameter and thirteen feet wide. It stopped being used in the 1960s.

With a recent fall in demand for more expensive flour, the mill ceased industrial production in 2011. In 2013, Castleford Heritage Trust purchased the Mill site, recognising its importance as one of the few remaining industrial buildings in the town, and the potential its size and riverside location offered. The Trust is working towards turning the mill into an arts and heritage centre, community venue and tourist attraction. Milling will continue on six pairs of grinding stones, and the waterwheel will be restored to generate power for the site.

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PottErIEs When pottery making began in Castleford, probably in the early 1700s, they used local clay to make the pottery and local coal to fire the kilns. But when Josiah Wedgwood developed creamware pottery in the 1770s, potters in Castleford followed suit, importing the white clay and flint which were needed to make the popular new cream coloured pottery.

The best known pottery in Castleford was that of David Dunderdale & Co. From 1790 he made high quality products similar to those made at the Leeds Pottery. The pottery was intended for export, so the company got into difficulties when pottery could not be exported to the Continent during the Napoleonic Wars. The company failed in 1821.

However, this was not the end of pottery making in Castleford, as many smaller potteries replaced Dunderdale & Co. They made cheaper pottery, mainly white earthenwares. Other local companies continued to use local clays to make red coarsewares, such as pancheons for bread making.

Some companies continued to use local fireclays to make stoneware bottles and ovenware. As many of these potteries did not mark their products, we know about them mainly from their advertisements.

The very last company to close was Clokie & Co Ltd, who made domestic pottery as well as supplying institutions. They closed in 1961.

To see more photographs of workers in the factory of Clokie and Co in the 1930s, go to www.twixtaireandcalder.co.uk Source: www.wakefield.gov.uk

MADE IN CAstlEforD

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HENRY MOORE Henry Moore was born in Castleford, in a small terraced house in Roundhill Road on 30th July 1898.

He attended Castleford Grammar School on a scholarship and subsequently became a teacher there.

His teaching was interrupted by the First World War during which he fought in France and was gassed. After the War he returned to his teaching post in Castleford but knew he wanted something better so he began studying at the Leeds School of Art from which he progressed to the Royal College of Art in London.

In 1924 he met Irina Radetsky, a painting student at the college, whom he married a year later.

The couple lived in Hampstead, where they mingled with many aspiring young artists including another sculptor from this area, Barbara Hepworth.

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His early sculptures of the 1920s, show the influences of Central American pre-Columbian art, and the massive figures of the Italian Renaissance (he particularly liked Michaelangelo’s work). By the 1930s his works had become highly abstract, consisting of simplified, rounded pieces carved from wood, with numerous indentations and holes often spanned with veils of thin metal wires.

His main themes include mother-and-child and family groups, fallen warriors, and, most characteristically, the reclining human figure.

Although he endured much criticism of his early work, in 1948 he was awarded the International Prize for Sculpture and his reputation worldwide grew over the following decades.

He is also well known for his sketches of people sheltering in the London underground during the Second World War, and of working miners.

The latter were sketched at Wheldale Colliery near Castleford where his father had worked.

His sculptures can be seen at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park near Wakefield.

A version of his Reclining Figure Draped is on show in the Castleford Forum.

He died in 1986. In September 2000 Moore Square was opened on the site of his Castleford birthplace.

Source: www.wakefield.gov.uk

Made in Castleford

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AlBErt WAINWrIGht Albert Wainwright was born in Castleford in 1898.

He was the youngest of the three children of Ada and William Wainwright. William was an engineer for John Lumb and Company, the glass making company and when Albert was very young the family lived in the glasshouse yard at number 27 Pottery Street.

When Albert was nine his father paid for him to go to Castleford Secondary School and later he went to Leeds College of Art. From his school days he was a friend of Henry Moore, who became world famous as a sculptor.

Albert’s life was not a long one (he was only 45 when he died) and he never became famous like his friend, but it is easy to see from his work that he was a talented artist with a colourful imagination and a strong personal style.

Throughout his life he designed programmes, stage sets and costumes for the theatre and an impressive range of this work is now in the collection at The Hepworth Wakefield.

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Over 30 years Albert created a number of sketchbooks which record his travels abroad and parts of his life, such as his time with the Flying Corps in the First World War. The Castleford Notebook of 1928 is a colourful mixture of street scenes, factories and industry, plus drawings of pupils and classrooms at Castleford Grammar School.

The school drawings were done when he worked as an art teacher at the school for two terms to cover for Alice Gostick who was ill.

Alice Gostick had taught both Albert Wainwright and Henry Moore, and had played an important role in encouraging their artistic talents.

When the notebook was created, Albert was no longer living in Castleford but many of the places he painted would have been important to him when he was growing up.

Source: www.wakefield.gov.uk

Made in Castleford

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VAL WOOD Val Wood was born in Castleford and now lives in Beverley, East Yorkshire. She is the author of The Hungry Tide, winner of the Catherine Cookson prize for fiction. Val has since written 18 novels, including her latest His Brother’s Wife.

Val Wood was born in Castleford and apart from a few years living in York as a very young child, spent her formative years in this mining town. She lived with her mother, baby sister, and Granny in her Granny’s house.

Val’s father was in the army and her mother, like so many women, became the main breadwinner, by working in Val’s uncle’s grocer’s shop in Castleford Market Hall.

They never considered themselves poor, because nobody had very much during the war years, but in her Granny’s terraced house in Glasshoughton, there was no electricity, only gas light and a candle to light her and her sister’s way to bed.

But there was always a good fire glowing in the kitchen range, another of her uncles was a miner and her Granny was allowed a wagon load of coal. There was fresh homemade bread, and ham boiled in the copper... or set pot as it was called in the West Riding.

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One of Val’s earliest recollections was hearing the ring of the miners’ clogs as they went up the hill for their early morning shift and then again a little later as those who had finished came down. There were no pithead baths then, and some of the men used to sit on their front steps in their blackened working clothes, smoking a rolled up cigarette whilst their wives filled the tin bath with hot water for their scrub down.

The family moved to East Yorkshire when Val was about thirteen.

Her father obtained work in Hull as a war damage surveyor and she can remember looking at the bomb sites and the damaged buildings and wondering what had been there before.

She never liked school and didn’t do well, except in English.

In her final term she won the English Prize, which was, appropriately, a book! After leaving school, having meanwhile trained as a professional mannequin (today they’re called ‘models’), she worked in Hull and the surrounding area.

Val has said about her story telling: ‘It began, I suppose, even before I can remember, for my mother often told the tale that when I was small I had an imaginary friend and would sit on the stairs and talk to her. I do believe that a lot of children have imaginary friends, the difference is that they lose them or forget them once they get older, whereas I still have lots, all in my head, and these friends make up the characters in my novels!

I married Peter, a photo-lithographer, in 1958. He was about to embark on a successful career in the print industry and I was working as an optical secretary in Hull. We have two daughters and a grandson, and it was to these daughters that I again began...

Once upon a time…’

Late last year Val was mentioned on BBC Radio 4’s Open Book show, where she was named one of the country’s top loaned authors from libraries. The Scarborough Evening News has just printed their list of top loaned adult fiction titles of 2012 and Val came out on top with her best-seller The Harbour Girl.

Source: www.valeriewood.co.uk

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HARRY MALKIN I started work at Fryston colliery two weeks after leaving school aged 15 and went on until I was 35, when the big strike of 1984–85, the closure of the pits, and the subsequent redundancy money offered gave me the time and impetus to carve out a new way of life.

I have always drawn and made things for as long as I can remember, it is the way I communicated from a very early age.

The work is regarded by fellow miners as a good rendition of the trials, tribulations and conditions that went unseen by the general populace. Long gone are the queues of hunched up men waiting under smog-filled skies for buses-to-work at four and five in the morning.

The tools of our trade are exhibited in museum cases and, like mining itself, the art which truly reflects it is also becoming a finite body of work as memories fade and those who experienced it grow fewer.

As well as drawing and painting I also sculpt and have made many features in the locality. More recent are the pieces for Allerton Bywater Miners and the one to the local fallen soldier in Afghanistan, ‘The James Backhouse Memorial’ at the entrance to Airedale school.

Harry Malkin 2013

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MADE IN

For further information about Castleford Heritage Trust and its activities, or to find out more about Queen’s Mill, please contact: Castleford Heritage Trust, Queen’s Mill, Aire Street, Castleford WF10 1JW Tel: 01977 556741 Email: info@castlefordheritagetrust.org.uk www.castlefordheritagetrust.org.uk Bridge photography by Tim Soar