The Museum Collection: Iron & brass foundry
Bradford on Avon Museum has a collection of cast iron objects that were made by the three iron foundries that worked in the town. Mostly these are items of street furniture: gully gratings, manhole covers and stop valve covers. Although the Museum is fortunate to have them, they are better displayed in situ in Bradford’s streets. However, they are quickly being replaced.
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Click on the thumbnail pictures to get a bigger view.
The wooden cogs were made as patterns for making moulds for casting. They would have been pressed into fine sand in a two-part mould, then removed to leave a hollow impression that was filled with molten iron or brass. When finished, the cogs would have been parts of machines that were used in the town’s rubber works.
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These tools were used for smoothing out imperfections in the sand mould before it was used for casting. They were made, of brass, at the Trowbridge Road foundry of Berkley Uncles & Sons, where they were used in making many of the cast iron objects around the town.
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A cast iron gully grating that was made by John Martin for draining rain water from the gutter of one of the streets of Bradford. It would have been made for Bradford Urban District Council. Bradford-made gully gratings are still fairly common, but are being replaced by modern versions that have been made elsewhere, most recently by the French firm of Pont-à-Mousson (PAM).
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A cast iron mains water stop valve cover. The box part was sunk into the pavement with the opening flap on top flush with the surface. It was made by Henry Crisp & Sons at their Avonside works in Bridge Street. The foundry was on part of the site where the Museum and Library now stand.
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Berkley Uncles and Son in Trowbridge Road made this cast iron stop valve cover for the Bradford Urban District Council. Uncles’ products are the most common in Bradford’s streets because the foundry was the longest lived. There are many different styles made by Uncles- they do not seem to have kept the patterns between orders.
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The flap from a stop valve cover bearing the name of J. Bigwood & Son, who were plumbers, not iron founders. The iron founders made items like this and manhole covers for several of Bradford’s plumbers and builders, some of which remain in the streets.
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A cast iron pig feeding trough that was made at the old foundry in Trowbridge Road that was run by Berkley Uncles & Sons. The firm’s name plate has been cast into the metal, so the pigs would have seen it as they ate their swill at Church Farm, Atworth.
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