The mysterious 'beehive' ovens hidden at the side of a Lancashire canal

[Alan de Enfield]

 

 

The mysterious 'beehive' ovens hidden at the side of a Lancashire canal - LancsLive

 

Today, canals are best known for barges and small boats chugging past, walking along the tow path with the dog or enjoying lunch at a canalside pub. But back in the 1800s, they played a vital role in transport vital goods across Lancashire and one of those was coal.

This practice had seen a significant decline by the 20th century, but some interesting aspects from that era have remained, in this case the Carnforth coke ovens. The five coke kilns, which are in the shape of beehives, are built into mounds of earth and are still visible alongside Lancaster Canal in Carnforth.

 

They were constructed around the time the northern end of the Lancaster Canal was finished in 1819. A number of others were built along the canal but they have since been covered over by vegetation and overgrowth. A group of dedicated volunteers (friends of Carnforth Coke Ovens) work hard to keep the cluster of ovens visible, previously using a method called 'biochar burn' to clear vegetation.

[Tracy D'arth]

Slow news day?

[Alan de Enfield]

16 minutes ago, Tracy D'arth said:

Slow news day?

 

 

I think it is called "Local interest".

[Jerra]

40 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

 

I think it is called "Local interest".

I would agree, in fact not just local interest probably of interest to anyone cruising in the area.   I am still however wondering what makes them mysterious when their use and origin is clearly know.

[Sea Dog]

12 minutes ago, Jerra said:

 I am still however wondering what makes them mysterious when their use and origin is clearly know.

It's a mystery indeed.

[Heartland]

It is important to recognise these structures as part of the industrial past and the need to convert coal into coke for the local iron smelting industry, placed on the off side of the Lancaster Canal they are five in number and credit must be given to the work of those that restored them.

 

 

 

[system 4-50]

5 minutes ago, Heartland said:

and credit must be given to the work of those that restored them.

Nope.  Too many people do waste-of-time stuff like this.

[Hudds Lad]

On 09/08/2022 at 12:53, Alan de Enfield said:

 

 

I think it is called "Local interest".

At least it's not one of those "Journalist tries normal person thing and here's what happened" stories, like the clown who visited her local woodland the other week with family and was amazed to find they had to pay parking for each of the three cars they turned up in when they all could have fitted in one

[Peugeot 106]

Well I found that interesting. I thought they were strange line kilns.

Thank you

[Feeby100]

Interesting if you have a iq and intrested in history 

[Jerra]

6 hours ago, system 4-50 said:

Nope.  Too many people do waste-of-time stuff like this.

So CRT and volunteers should do nothing to preserve the industrial heritage of the canal system?

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

38 minutes ago, Feeby100 said:

Interesting if you have a iq and intrested in history 

We all have an IQ 😃

Even mine’s high enough to take an interest. 
 

I’m simply very glad there’s folk out there willing to share their knowledge. 

 

[system 4-50]

35 minutes ago, Jerra said:

So CRT and volunteers should do nothing to preserve the industrial heritage of the canal system?

The bow of the Titanic is underwater, but we have gangs of people running around checking that the varnish on the deckchairs is of the correct colour.  

If the edifice in question is of particular architectural merit or relates to a particular important point in history then save it.  If it is just old then bin it.   Near me people have attempted to preserve a concrete floor, just because it once had cement factory on it many decades ago.  You can take preservation too far.  Why preserve these bits when the canal system itself is on the verge of collapse?

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

7 hours ago, system 4-50 said:

Nope.  Too many people do waste-of-time stuff like this.

I’m sure you don’t mean that

This is the stuff that makes boating about worth it. 

Once gone they are gone. 
 

7 minutes ago, system 4-50 said:

Why preserve these bits when the canal system itself is on the verge of collapse?

But these bits are not being preserved by CRT who should be preserving the Navigation and can’t but by independent bodies that do it because it’s the right and proper thing to do. 
 

Edited August 10, 2022 by Goliath

[Jerra]

28 minutes ago, system 4-50 said:

The bow of the Titanic is underwater, but we have gangs of people running around checking that the varnish on the deckchairs is of the correct colour.  

If the edifice in question is of particular architectural merit or relates to a particular important point in history then save it.  If it is just old then bin it.   Near me people have attempted to preserve a concrete floor, just because it once had cement factory on it many decades ago.  You can take preservation too far.  Why preserve these bits when the canal system itself is on the verge of collapse?

How do you know the people who are maintaining these aren't ;local archaeologists who couldn't give the proverbial tinkers cuss about whether locks work, stoppages etc.  Just because they are canal side it doesn't mean they are being maintained by CRT volunteers, unless of course you have a reference which shows that.

[system 4-50]

14 hours ago, Jerra said:

How do you know the people who are maintaining these aren't ;local archaeologists who couldn't give the proverbial tinkers cuss about whether locks work, stoppages etc.  Just because they are canal side it doesn't mean they are being maintained by CRT volunteers, unless of course you have a reference which shows that.

I don't.  I just want less local archaeologists and more people who do practical useful things like maintaining the infrastructure of the canal navigations.  I don't care whether they are called CRT or sommat else.

[Jerra]

14 minutes ago, system 4-50 said:

I don't.  I just want less local archaeologists and more people who do practical useful things like maintaining the infrastructure of the canal navigations.  I don't care whether they are called CRT or sommat else.

Two thoughts spring to mind.

 

1.  So history doesn't/shouldn't be preserved.  Right lets bulldoze Stonehenge and build multi-storey flats to help with the housing crisis, then start looking round the country for all other historical monuments/artefacts and destroy them as well.

 

2. You will not get people who have no interest in canals to help maintain them.  It would be like suggesting to me I go and help out as a beater at a pheasant shoot or a volunteer marshal at a car rally through our local forest.

[system 4-50]

3 minutes ago, Jerra said:

Two thoughts spring to mind.

 

1.  So history doesn't/shouldn't be preserved.  Right lets bulldoze Stonehenge and build multi-storey flats to help with the housing crisis, then start looking round the country for all other historical monuments/artefacts and destroy them as well.

 

2. You will not get people who have no interest in canals to help maintain them.  It would be like suggesting to me I go and help out as a beater at a pheasant shoot or a volunteer marshal at a car rally through our local forest.

1.  Come on, I expect better from you!  A super extrapolation! Why stop here?  Clearly everything we have today is going to be the history of tomorrow so should be destroyed.  And not just on Earth, throughout the Universe!  This will take a lot manpower so all canal maintenance will have to stop!

 

2. True.  It would take a substantial shift in current culture to increase interest in practical works away from the ephemeral stuff like bird-watching as popularised on the media.  But we are not the world's experts on wasting human effort.  Just watch the media in raptures over a Budhist monk sitting cross-legged for hours trying his hardest to think about - nothing!  Nobody seems to be able to stand up and shout "You're wasting your time!".

[Jerra]

7 minutes ago, system 4-50 said:

1.  Come on, I expect better from you!  A super extrapolation! Why stop here?  Clearly everything we have today is going to be the history of tomorrow so should be destroyed.  And not just on Earth, throughout the Universe!  This will take a lot manpower so all canal maintenance will have to stop!

Good you have spotted how ridiculous your suggesting the kilns shouldn't be preserved by those who want to preserve them really was.

7 minutes ago, system 4-50 said:

 

2. True.  It would take a substantial shift in current culture to increase interest in practical works away from the ephemeral stuff like bird-watching as popularised on the media.

I take it you know nothing about bird watching.  I am a bird watcher along enjoying nature as many people do, I help out with scientific research, as 40,000 of us did for the last bird Atlas, and I take part in practical work on reserves carrying out environmental improvement.   I think you will find many boaters and CRT volunteers enjoy watching the wildlife when the are near the canals doing their thing.  You really shouldn't pontificate about things you clearly don't have a lot of experience of.

 

By the way I have missed all this media coverage of birdwatching can you point me to some please.

7 minutes ago, system 4-50 said:

 But we are not the world's experts on wasting human effort.  Just watch the media in raptures over a Budhist monk sitting cross-legged for hours trying his hardest to think about - nothing!  Nobody seems to be able to stand up and shout "You're wasting your time!".

Yet again you must watch/read different media from those I see.  However I suspect up there in the Milky Way you have different papers and TV channels to those we have here on earth.  

 

Perhaps it is time you returned to earth.

[Heartland]

Nope.  Too many people do waste-of-time stuff like this.

 

It is an important facet of this forum to engage in dialogue in this insignificant speck of the Laniakea Supecluster, which is British Canal Network and even comments from someone interested in old English Electric computers can be considered of value. 

 

It is important to learn from history and those that follow history in its myriads of forms have challenges as many as the stars with in this Supercluster. If people learnt from the past then perhaps fewer mistakes might be made. 

 

Understanding that these structures beside the Lancaster Canal were used for coke making is important to some and especially those that pass along the Lancaster Canal and see them and wonder what they were. Lime kilns would have been a good guess as lime kilns of the horse shoe type were once common on early waterways, but determining these were used to make coke is important to those interested in such things, and again it is useful function of this forum to mention it. Those that restored the structure learnt about how they were constructed and hopefully have determined when they were made. When that was would be of use to know.  As the nearby Carnforth Ironworks was built in 1864. 

 

For those interested in the making of the coke ovens beside the Lancaster Canal might be interested to find out if they had any connection with the ironworks or if they had an earlier function. The coke made from coal had to be transported along the canal from mines that produced a suitable coking coal. 

 

The ironworks was made in in the days of an extensive railway network that came to serve Carnforth, that is railways owned by the Furness Railway Company, Midland Railway Company and the London & North Western Railway Company. And it by this mode of transport that the raw and finished materials for the ironworks was conveyed. So what where did the coke made in the ovens go to ? May be if a 4-50 computer is fired up an answer might be found!

 

Here is a view of Carnforth Ironworks-

 

 

[PD1964]

  Maybe the OP should of put it in the History & Heritage section.

[Heartland]

Yus spot on, but Alan posted it .

 

[Tam & Di]

On 11/08/2022 at 13:25, system 4-50 said:

I don't.  I just want less local archaeologists and more people who do practical useful things like maintaining the infrastructure of the canal navigations.  I don't care whether they are called CRT or sommat else.

 

Do you help with such practical useful things, or do you just want others to do it?

 

Tam

[pete.i]

On 10/08/2022 at 14:16, system 4-50 said:

Nope.  Too many people do waste-of-time stuff like this.

If nobody did "waste-of-time stuff like this" you wouldn't have any canals to sail your boat on. But then most blinkered people don't realise the significance of the-waste-of-time stuff that people who care do.

[Pluto]

3 hours ago, pete.i said:

If nobody did "waste-of-time stuff like this" you wouldn't have any canals to sail your boat on. But then most blinkered people don't realise the significance of the-waste-of-time stuff that people who care do.

As you imply, if we don't get local people interested in their local canal and its heritage we will loose out on support for funding for maintenance. The more people feel some sort of ownership of canals, the more likely it is that government will continue their funding.

 

Coke ovens were not that unusual, as even back at the beginning of the 19th century people appreciated smokeless fuels. This site probably pre-dates railways, and certainly the local ironworks, so there must have been a demand from the local population. The best household coal was cannel, so called because it burnt like a candle with a bright flame and produced little dust. However, it was more expensive than other coals, so coke was a low dust alternative, even if it did not produce a bright flame. Coke was much more widely used than most people think, and there were a number of large coke ovens alongside the L&LC in Burnley. Canal steamers and early railway engines tended to use coke in order to keep down pollution.