Darnall Works

Darnall Works
Former Heat Treatment Workshop at Darnall Works
Location shown within Sheffield
Former names	Don Glass Works Darnall Steel Works Kayser Ellison Works Sanderson Kayser Works
General information
Type	Steelworks
Address	Darnall Road, Darnall
Town or city	Sheffield
Country	United Kingdom
Coordinates	53°23′28″N 1°25′23″W / 53.391°N 1.423°W / 53.391; -1.423
Opened	1790s, 1835, 1871–1872, 1913
Renovated	2010
Technical details
Structural system	Brick, some buildings with steel frames

The Darnall Works is a former steelworks in the Darnall area of Sheffield in England. The only remaining large complex of crucible furnaces, the works opened in the 1835 and were frequently extended and adapted until the late 20th century. Some of the structures at the works are listed buildings, at Grade II* and Grade II, and part of the site is a Scheduled Ancient Monument.

Naylor and Sanderson was established in 1776 as a cutlery- and steel-manufacturing business in the Attercliffe area of Sheffield. By the 1820s, it had grown into a large concern, focused on producing steel, and based at works on West Street near the city centre. Naylor retired, enabling four members of the Sanderson family to take control and rename the firm as "Sanderson Brothers". Over the next couple of decades, they took on various sites in the city to house their growing concern, and in 1835 they took over a large site on the edge of the hamlet of Darnall.

The site was already in industrial use, as the Don Glass Works, which English Heritage believe were probably already established in 1793, centred on a glass cone. The Sanderson Brothers were able to acquire the site on a 21-year lease for £13/13/0 annual rent. As part of this, it appears that they took over the glassworks, where possible learning technological advances in one industry to develop the other, and perhaps adapting the glass cone into a cementation furnace. Both cementation and crucible furnaces were definitely in use, but the glassworks was sold off during the 1850s to Melling, Carr and Co, who operated it until the start of the 20th century. Although the glassworks then closed, and there are no above-ground remains, English Heritage consider it likely that there are significant underground structures, along with discarded glass, and this forms part of the justification for the listing of the site as a Scheduled Ancient Monument.

The establishment was successful and, in 1871, Sandersons decided to concentrate production at the Darnall site. To increase capacity, the firm constructed several new buildings in 1871 and 1872, and these are the oldest surviving structures on the site. Cementation furnaces had fallen out of favour, and the new buildings instead contained 180 crucible furnaces. Two abutting ranges of steel shops survive, both single-storey, in brick with asbestos cement, roofed partly in slate and partly in corrugated asbestos. The south-east range provided 84 holes for steel manufacture, while the south range had 24, designed to allow the casting of big objects using the "continuous teeming" method of production; a further west range was similar to the south range, giving a total of 132 melting holes. The south range alone cost £6000 to construct, and it remained in use for around fifty years, briefly resuming production during World War II. The two ranges are Grade II* listed and form the core of the Scheduled Ancient Monument.