Burwell Engineers

03/10/2026

Time for another interesting history fact from the ironworks! Did you know that Canons for the Napoleonic Wars where made at our ironworks? The Canons onboard HMS Victory famous for serving in the battle of Trafalgar had the iron for her canons smelted here at Backbarrow out of Cumbrian Iron Ore. I actually met someone in Ulverston who had copies of the Canon Designs, shame he didn’t want to part with them!

15/09/2026

We usually use this page to update you on work that’s taken place on the restoration of our ironworks, but to make it a little more lively I might start putting up more regular posts looking into the history and interesting facts from the ironworks long history.

Did you know that the pig iron created here at Backbarrow had a large impact on 617 squadron and Barnes Wallis during the Second World War? Operation Chastise (the dam busters raid) used our pig iron in the steel making processes during the construction of the Upkeep Mine (the bouncing bomb) designed by Barnes Wallis.

Rolls Royce also used our iron to form the specialist parts for their Merlin engines, so the chance that one or more of the 617 squadron Lancaster where using our raw pig iron at their foundries before they were delivered to Avro.

(Photo 1. Recently restored condenser, Photo 2. Lancaster bombers flying over Derwent Dam Sheffield in 2014 taken by Michael Rothwell, Photo 3. The three Lancasters at RAF Kirkby taken by Michael Rothwell).

12/09/2026

A days work complete, finishing off the grinding and polishing on the flywheel of the Edgar Allen blowing engine, finished off with a layer of red oxide, just in time for tomorrows open day!

It’s a bit of a shame that the wheel is going back to the original paint work of green and black, I actually quite like it signal red!

Thanks for the support from a few passer by’s today, always enjoy welcoming people on site.

Also had a good tidy up and clean for the visitors tomorrow, the place was beginning to look a little like a construction site before with the restoration under way.

12/09/2026

For anyone who may be interested our Ironworks are open tomorrow for guided tours, you can book a visit for a toured walk around the works with the Ironworks Trustees on the Heritage Open Days website https://www.heritageopendays.org.uk/submission-event/backbarrow-ironworks-heritage-trust-1.html

If you’d prefer a less informal visit, Michael from Burwell Engineers will be working on the engine today from 10:00 leave a comment below with your time and he’ll be happy to show you around!

Backbarrow Ironworks is one of the first built [1711] in the North of England continuing for over 250 years until 1965. This amazingly long period of iron production represents the best illustration of iron smelting technology develoment nationally.

01/09/2026

Time for another update from the Ironworks, recently our efforts have been focused mainly on bringing water back to our site. We were successful in fitting out the ironworks with green electricity, the next step was to see if we could hack into one of our two water sources. The river is still connected to our site, as one of our trustees found out back in 2018 when an digger breached the river pipe sending high pressured water out to quite some height! We however choose to have look into our secondary water source which is fresh spring water from up in the Haverthwaite Heights. We have managed to clear out the 2" pipe in the engine room using a drain snake tool and we now have running water back on site. Now in the photos you can see where our spring water comes from, located in the woods is a small stone building and inside is a Cornish boiler now converted into a tank with a bullet shaped tank next to it. The Cornish boiler is incredibly important to the site, as not only does it provide us with our water it could be down into single numbers regarding its age rarity, it had seen it's life in steam before becoming redundant and converted into a tank, it could easily date back to the 1820's possibly prior making it at least a 200 year old boiler!

To help re-instate our water system we've purchased some 2" pipe work and are beginning to refit the water trough and pipework through to the two boiler feed pumps, we are also looking for an 2" brass tap or gate valve for the pipe on top of the trough if anyone has any?

Moving on you can see that work has progressed on the Edgar Allen Blowing Engine, with some serious heavy duty grinding and polishing sessions! The flywheel is just about ready to be painted with its first layer of red oxide paint, and as you can see in the photos the engines cylinder and part of the steam chest has been complete.

Digging and excavation in the compressor house has continued as we slowly remove the infill located in that building to reveal the bottom workings of the old Willans Robinsons engine.

Finally, a thanks to Alister Stewart who has joined the team volunteering here at the ironworks.

16/06/2026

It's been a while since we posted on the page, to be fair we've been quite busy! It's all been about power recently. We've managed to get a 1960's 6Kw Kirloskar diesel generator on site, and currently we are planning the construction of an era style power station to up our grid so large workshop machines can be fitted into the museum room.

In other news though, you might be interested to find out about our collection of Armfield Engineers Turbines, both are Pelton turbines. The first one in our collection is the now completely restored British Empire type and is from the early 1900's. This machine was rescued from Blencathra in Cumbria and is now sat on display in the engine room. The first picture is of the sorry state of the turbine before we went through blood sweat and tears to bring it back to Backbarrow for restoration!

The second turbine is another Armfield Pelton Turbine, but this one is an even older variant with the design dating right back to the 1880's. This is our most recent acquisition and has been removed from a farm in Wales (the old owner has asked for us to keep the site quiet so that is sadly all we can say) he had interesting stories about when the turbine was in use when he was a child, we can say that the turbine was decommissioned in 1956.

These turbines are quite special, mainly due to them been quite possibly the last of their type from Armfield Engineers of this era, so it was only right for them to be preserved. I certainly haven't seen any of these before but you never know what's hiding under 6ft of silt in your local mill!

17/04/2026

A long due update from Backbarrow Ironworks… Work has begun on restoring our blower engine. The photos show the first stage of stripping removing the rear cover and showing the rubber suction valves. On top of this the usual grinding and painting, the blower is to be painted in gun green and black, which is how it was when in operation.

In bigger news, we have finally figured out the engines manufacturer and production date! For years before Burwell Engineers had even taken the site on historians and enthusiasts have named her the Tangye engine, believing that she had come from an old textile mill second hand, coupling up to a new blower. Today in a BIHT meeting a new valuation document from 1941 (valuations of industrial sites where common during the Second World War) we found out that the engine is actually a Edgar Allen of Sheffield machine built specifically designed for the site! This was amazing news for Burwell as both Will and I are Yorkshiremen and it also fits in well with connections to Sheffield Steel alongside orders we’ve found for pig iron deliveries to Stocksbridge Steelworks.

This news is fantastic as we now not only have the only horizontal piston blowing engine left in the UK, but also the last remaining Edgar Allen engine. This connects Cumbrian iron making to Sheffield steel making perfectly!

We’re beginning to create an interesting collection of engines on site, the last remaining Edgar Allen Horizontal Blowing Engine, our Armfield Engineers British Empire Pelton Wheel and Josh Waddington & Sons of Barrow in Furness’s Hindpool Foundry as a converted workshop engine, again perhaps the only one in preservation.