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Description and History of Site:-

For about 130 years there were many steam engines produced at this iron foundry situated on King Street, Burnley (now Queen's Lancashire Way), supplying power to the textile mills of Pendle and Yorkshire.

Ashmore (1982): 'Started early 19th century and became one of the town's major engineering firms, making a variety of products including steam engines for mills in the area and farther afield. Three-storey stone building in King Street now used by steel-construction engineers.'The first works was started in a small way by the Marsland family and run by James Marsland, an iron founder. He started to build steam engines early in the 19th century and in 1815 rebuilt the foundry on a larger scale.
Between 1830 and 1858 Marsland's Burnley Iron Works made many steam engines for driving textile mills, particularly beam engines.
In 1858 Marsland's took over the boiler-making firm of Smith and Layfield and began making boilers and gasometers at the King Street premises.
In 1861 the executors of the late James Marsland sold the works to a partnership of William Bracewell and Price Griffiths. At that time there were over 70 people employed in the engineering shop and over 50 in the moulding shop. The partnership only lasted three years, however in that period produced large double beam engines for Airebank Mill, Gargrave along with compounded horizontal engines for Danes House Mill, Burnley and Albert Mills, Nelson. In addition to the King Street premises Bracewell and Griffiths occupied a second foundry on the south side of Trafalgar Street near the junction of Sackville Street known as the Trafalgar Street Engineering Works.
By 1864 Bracewell was the sole owner and the works were producing some impressive steam engines. A series of large double beam engines were produced, designed by a self-taught engineer called William Pickup who also managed the works. These included engines destined for Keighley, Yorkshire, Tower Mill (1866), New Mill (1869) and Dalton Mills (1873-6) The latter engine was advertised in the trade press as being ''the largest steam engine in the world..." The engine developed 2,000 i.h.p and was a double McNaught compound engine with high pressure cylinders of 45 inches (114.3cm) diameter and a 54 inch stroke (137.1cm) and low pressure cylinder of 60 inches (152.4) diameter and 108 inch stroke (274.3cm). The beams were over 37 feet long (11.2m) and weighed 24 tons (24,385kg) and the flywheel weighed 100 tons (101,605kg). In the mid 1870's a number of mine winding and mine drainage engines were also produced.
In September 1879 William Snr created a partnership with his two sons, William Metcalf Bracewell and Christopher George Bracewell, the company became William Bracewell and Sons.
In 1880 a large part of the iron works was demolished and rebuilt with the present (2020) Queen's Lancashire Way frontage retained. William Snr withdrew from the day to day running of the business leaving the sons to run the works. Hoiwever in June 1880 the eldest son William Metcalf died suddenly at the age of 42 intestate. He was the business man of the two sons leaving William Snr no choice but to return to run the business. There followed a family feud resulting in the business being put up for sale with the Craven Bank stepping in to secure its assets. The legal issues and sale of Bracewells assets took six years to complete. The resulting sale raised less than expected and at his death William Snr was nearly bankrupt. The sale catalogue describes ;
Land of 9,651 square yards and the main building occupied 3,744 square yards, the plant and machinery included; 51 lathes, 2 flywheel lathes, 7 donkey engines, 17 hand cranes, 8 planing machines, 4 slotting machines, various shaping, drilling, screwing, wheel cutting and roller fluting machines, overhead steam and hand travelling cranes, wrought iron cupolas, Baker's pressure blower, 3 moulding machines, Ryder 4 hammer forging machine, 3 steam hammers, 10 smiths hearths, band saw, self-acting saw bench, 6 brass furnaces etc. etc.
The Burnley Iron Works and adjoining George Street and King Street weaving sheds, also owned by the Bracewell family, finally sold in October 1887 for £15,750 to a new company named The Burnley Iron Works Co Ltd. The company had a registered capital of £20,000 in £10 shares and the directors were all Burnley men, 3 engineers, 3 cotton spinning manufacturers and the manager of the Craven Bank.
The Burnley Iron Works Co Ltd began a very successful period building Corliss valve steam engines for which they developed their own steam valve cut-off mechanism, supplying around sixty of that type to power textile mills. By the 1900's the majority of the engines being produced had two cylinders and were either horizontal cross-compounds or horizontal tandem-compound types. A small number of horizontal double tandem-compound and four cylinder triple-compound were also made to develop 1,250 i.h.p. Most of the engines were built for the cotton mills and factories of north-east Lancashire although a small number were exported to India, Burma and Spain.
The Burnley Iron Works Co Ltd closed its doors finally in 1938. In 1947 the works were acquired by the Newtown Steelworks Co Ltd, designers and suppliers of structural steel for buildings. That company closed in 1982. The former Burnley Iron Works facing onto the Queen's Lancashire Way is still extant today (2020).

A video showing a 1903 Burnley Iron Works 700 i.h.p two cylinder horizontal cross-compound corliss valve engine in action, originally built for Harle Syke Mill, Burnley but moved to The Science Museum, London, can be viewed here; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIza2qnOgQY

Further Reading and References:-

The Textile Mills of Pendle and Their Steam Engines, Geoff Shackleton, Landmark Publishing pp44-49

Ashmore, Owen. 'The Industrial Archaeology of North-West England and Where to Find It'. 1982
Nevell, Michael. 'A Guide to the Industrial Archaeology of Lancashire'. Association for Industrial Archaeology, 2007. ISBN: 978 0 9528930 9 7

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Key Words :- iron works textile mill steam engines

Viewing the Site :- Public footpath runs alongside.

Address :- B6240, Queen's Lancashire Way, Burnley, Lancashire, BB11 1LY
Grid Ref :- SD 83648 32565
Co-ordinates :- Lat 53.789142 , Long -2.249681
Local Authority :- Burnley Borough Council
Pre 1974 County :- Lancashire
Site Status :- Site extant - Protected status unknown
Site Condition :- Site in alternative industrial use
Site Dates :- pre 1815 -
Contributor :- Andrew Garford - 3 October 2020

Copyright :- cc-by-nc-sa 4.0 © Andrew Garford