Parkend Ironworks
| Parkend Ironworks | |
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c1880. Awaiting Demolition; the three furnaces can be seen on the left. The building to the right is the engine house which has survived.
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 Parkend Ironworks
 Parkend Ironworks shown within Gloucestershire |
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| OS grid reference | SO6168007887 |
| Coordinates | 51°46′07″N 2°33′26″W / 51.768553°N 2.557111°WCoordinates: 51°46′07″N 2°33′26″W / 51.768553°N 2.557111°W |
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Parkend Ironworks, also known as Parkend Furnace, in the village of Parkend, in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, England, was a coke-fired furnace built in 1799. Most of the works were demolished between 1890 and 1908, but the engine house survived and is arguably the best preserved example of its kind to be found in the United Kingdom.
During the 17th century Parkend had been, at different times, the location of two charcoal-fired Crown furnaces, known as the King's Ironworks; In 1612 James I contracted the Earl of Pembroke to build and run a blast furnace and forge at ‘Parke End’, bringing with it the first real settlement at what was to become the village of Parkend. The furnace was destroyed on the orders of Parliament, during the Civil War, in 1644. After the war, in 1653, Parliament instructed that another furnace should be built, a short distance downstream from the first. Being located in a royal forest, control of the furnace returned to the Crown after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. It ceased production, and was demolished, in 1674.
Iron was first successfully smelted with coke in 1709 at Coalbrookdale, in Shropshire. Despite there being extensive coal measures in the Forest of Dean, local coal did not produce coke that was ideal for smelting and Forest ironmasters were reluctant to invest in the new technology. It was not until the last decade of the 18th century that coke-fired furnaces began to make an appearance, with Parkend, and its many coalmines, once again considered an ideal location for iron production. It was one of three coke-fired ironworks, Cinderford and Whitecliff being the others, that were built almost simultaneously in the Forest.
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