Refractory materials

Above are four images of the same curved refractory brick. My shoe in the first image helps you to gauge the size. The cream colour which is indicative of a refractory brick (as opposed to a common construction brick). On the inside, concave surface of the brick is a slag which has fused to the surface indicating that the brick came from a hot metal ladle or was originally part of a vessel for hot metal or slag. So that would be a blast furnace, bessemer converter, or cupola. It may have been part of a runner system outside a vessel, such as the sand lined troughs guiding pig iron or slag to the pig beds or to slag boxes/ladles.  

The broken tuyeres are a hugely significant find. In many seasons of studying the slag banks it was only in the Spring of 2026 that these were found, exposed by the significant erosion where the Keer estuary meets the bay. 

There were two types of Tuyere, Those used in the Blast Furnaces and those used in Bessemer Converter vessels. These are the latter. All the more rare because the steelworks had a relatively short lifespan between 1880 and 1890. The finds are small relative to others which can still be found embedded in slag on the shorelione just North of Harrington. I judge them to be of proportions consistent with the 6 ton vessels at Carnforth. 

Tuyeres were long tubes of solid refractory shaped like a trumpet with a series of parallel holes running through them for the passage of air into the base of the vessel during steelmaking. They -operated in a fiercely volatile and abrasive environment and would wear out in time. It is no surprise then, to find discarded and broken examples in amongst the slag and general waste from the works. 

The Seaton Fire Brick Co. brick is of personal significance. I was born and brought up in Seaton and occasionally would play amongst the fields around Moor House Guards in the 1960s. I recall several grassy banks with a series of random brick walls and old foundations, and an old donkey that someone must have kept there. Until now (2026) I had no idea that they produced fire bricks and I don't ever recall finding a Seaton brick in any of the places I visited nearby. To find one at Carnforth was a complete surprise, and a joy.