Nailsea Glassworks

Nailsea Glassworks was a glass manufacturing factory in Nailsea in the English county of Somerset. The remaining structures have been designated as a scheduled monument.

The factory making bottle glass and some window glass opened in 1788 and closed in 1873. Little remains of the site, however it was excavated and preserved under sand before a Tesco supermarket and car park was built on it after 2000.

The glassworks was established by John Robert Lucas, in 1788 because of the plentiful supply of coal for the furnaces, from Elms colliery and other local mines of the Nailsea Basin and outlier of the Bristol Coalfield. The choice of site may also have been influenced by plans for the Grand Western Canal which was planned to include a branch to Nailsea. Lucas had previously had interests in a brewery and glassworks in Bristol and another at Stanton Wick. The company initially traded as "Nailsea Crown Glass and Glass Bottle Manufacturers". Lucas originally built two "cones": one for window glass and the other to make bottle glass.

Some of the raw materials were sourced locally, including local sand (although this was later shipped in from further away) and lime from Walton in Gordano and Wraxall. Saltcake came from Netham Chemical Works in Bristol while kelp and other seaweeds were brought from Ireland and Wales. These were used in general manufacture and in some experimental work on the production of cylinder glass.

John Hartley of Hartley Wood and Co moved to Nailsea in 1812 and began working with Robert Lucas Chance who was the eldest son of William Chance, one of the partners. In the 1820s a new cone was built which survived until 1905, and in the 1840s the"Lily cone" was added for the production of sheet glass.

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