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Home » Industry » Metal mining and manufacturing » Chain manufacturers

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Workers at the Brown Lenox chainworks, Pontypridd, 1916
Workers at the Brown Lenox chainworks, Pontypridd, c. 1930
Brown Lenox chainworks, Pontypridd
Newbridge chainworks, Pontypridd, probably late 1840s
  • This advert describes some of the high points in the history of the Brown, Lenox & Co chainworks, Pontypridd. These include: the provision of chains to the admiralty since 1808, the making of chains for such vessels as the Great Eastern and Mauritania, and the making of the world's strongest chain in 1929.
Advert for Brown, Lenox & Co chainworks, Pontypridd, 1929
  • Exhibition piece chain with tapered links manufactured at Brown, Lenox & Company's Newbridge Chain Works, Pontypridd, probably nineteenth century. Established in 1816, this works grew both in size and in reputation and from the mid nineteenth century was sole contractor to the Royal Navy for the supply of anchor chains. The immense prestige that this contract brought the firm resulted in considerable orders from merchant shipping also and by the early twentieth century most famous passengers liners boasted anchor chains manufactured by Brown, Lennox & Company. The works manufactured chains over varying sizes and this exhibition piece is designed to emphasize the craftsmanship required. Each link is slightly larger than the next, which would have required the forging of bar iron to appropriate diameters for many of the links have been made from rod of a non-standard diameter. The chain may possibly have been an apprentice piece, a test of competency at the conclusion of a seven year apprenticeship.
Tapered link chain manufactured at Brown, Lenox & Company's Newbridge Chain & Anchor Works, Pontypridd, 19th century