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Home » Industry » Metal mining and manufacturing » East Moors (Cardiff), iron and steelworks

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ASW (Celsa UK) Tremorfa Steelworks, Cardiff, 1995
  • Rail mounted slag pot from East Moors Steelworks, Cardiff, mid twentieth century. The pot was manufactured at Dowlais Foundry, Merthyr Tydfil. The metal smelting processes used in Wales generated molten waste products (slag) as well as smelted metals. Some processes generate relatively large amounts of slag and moving this very heavy, molten waste called for specialist vehicles. Of the Welsh metal smelting industries, the iron and steel industry evolved the largest and most specialised fleet of vehicles for carrying slag from furnaces to tips. This rail mounted slag pot is typical of twentieth century practice. It was manufactured at Dowlais Foundry, Merthyr Tydfil for East Moors Steel Works, Cardiff, probably in the 1950s, and used until the steelworks closed in 1978. The cast iron pot has walls 30cm thick but it required no special lining because slag did not adhere unduly to the pot. The slag was tipped in a molten state onto waste tips which, typically of coastal smelting works in Wales, were used to level up low-lying land for development, to reclaim land from the sea, and to form sea defences. Pre-twentieth century inland smelting works, in contrast, where tipping land was at a premium, were obliged to mound up their slag in a manner similar to mine waste tips. Most of these older inland tips have been reclaimed with their slag being crushed and used as fill and foundation material.
Rail mounted slag pot from East Moors Steelworks, Cardiff, mid-20th century
  • Steel melter's blue spectacles used at East Moors Steelworks, Cardiff, mid twentieth century. Steel melters' spectacles were not just protective, they also symbolise the empirical nature of the process of steel smelting for much of its history, which was based on visual assessment of molten metal done entirely through such spectacles. The precise shade of glass varied from one pair to the next and so steel melters carefully guarded their own pairs as they'd be unable to accurately judge the condition of the melt if another man's spectacles were used. This was one of the last bastions of a 'black art' i.e. a skill that could only be learnt by years of experience. Such visual assessment of the condition of molten steel was universal in the open hearth process which dominated Welsh steelmaking from the late nineteenth century until the 1970s.
Steel melter's protective blue lensed spectacles used at East Moors Steelworks, Cardiff
East Moors Steelworks, Cardiff, 1978
East Moors Steelworks, Cardiff, 1978
East Moors Steelworks, Cardiff, 1978