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It was common practice that Iron and Steel works on the former Cumberland and Westmorland coast should dump their slag on the shore. Evidence survives at Carnforth, Millom, Barrow, Harrington and Workington and elsewhere. In all works except one, the slag banks grew organically upwards, outwards toward the sea and parallel to the shoreline over time.
But the evidence from early Maps, and corroborated by the remaining deposits, show that Carnforth built their slag bank in the form of a long thin spit, starting near Cote Stones, parallelling the Keer and then turning sharp right at the estuary and heading North West in the direction of Arnside.
In 1891 the slag bank was long and narrow. The single track standard gauge line is depicted running to the very end of the bank (which was just a few yards beyond the extent of this map. The bank is shown entirely sited upon the sands, the Salt Marsh was much further inland (than it is today).
It was Walduck's vision to use the slag from his ironworks to build a barrage that would reach Arnside and allow him to drain and exploit the land so enclosed.
The 1910 map shows that a great deal of slag had been dumped just beyond the sharp curve. It was still bounded by sand, but the salt marsh has grown significantly in the 20 years since. It is most significant that the railway has been cut back to a point roughly where the present day motor sport track exists.
Slag is now being dumped form tracks which are running North (back toward Warton Crag.
Walduck was hugely ambitious and not averse to taking huge risks. He had bought up many parcels of land in the area and the rights to many of the local mines, in a bid to find new deposits of iron ore for his works. He was well on the way to building his barrage when he was challenged by local townsfolk and was eventually forced to abandon his original plan.
He funded the building of a stone "wall" at Jenny Brown's point (which was about twice as long as that visible today) but after investing considerable time and expense, that too failed.
The round slag blocks date from the early blast furnaces, where the slag was relatively cool and semi-solidified. The constitution of the slag changed when the newer furnaces were being driven harder and the slag was free running. The surviving round slag blocks on the shoreline at the end of the bank supports what is indicated on the 1891 map.
So what makes the Carnforth slag banks unique is that they were not simply a disposal site for ironworks slag. They were originally part of an ambitious plan to build a sea wall that could have yielded a large area of valuable land and left a coastline very different to what we see today.
To a lesser extent one might argue that the surviving octagonal and round shaped slag blocks here on the sands, together with the square shaped blocks at Keer Marsh, combine to make the slag bank unique.
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