When Sheinton beat Ironbridge with its iron-making!
An article by Trevor G. Hill
Today thousands of visitors to the Ironbridge Gorge may well leave thinking that it was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. Little do they know that iron-making had been a major industry across Shropshire since the 16th century and one important site was the iron-forge in Sheinton

Today as you drive through the village you may not notice Sheinton’s iron forge, as all you will see is a green field on the south just by the bridge over Sheinton Brook. However by looking in the field on the north of the road you will see that there is a shallow depression leading down to the brook, it was outflow leat from the forge. A map has been copied from a Manor Map dated 1747 which was made as part of a survey for the land-owner John Newport Esq., and drawn by the famous map-maker John Rocque. Although the forge was no longer in production the forge building is shown and what had been the mill-pool was listed in the survey book as a grass field.

Although it has been suggested that a bloomery for making iron existed in Sheinton in the Roman period the earliest positive evidence of a bloomery is from the will of Peter Woodd of Shinewood dated 1567. Among his creditors were:

William Chilterton 4/4 and costs in law, he oweth me for three brannes of drosse metal.

John Goodman a branne of black stone metal.

William Pinkham one fier of mayned metal of black stone 2 fyers of five brannes and one stedie and 7/8 whereof I have received 22/-.

The location of his ironworks has not been established but it may have been on the site of the later forge.

In 1635 Sir Richard Newport of Ercall Magna has built a blast-furnace in Leighton. As forges were set up to take pig-iron from the furnaces it is probable that the forge at Sheinton was built at about the same time. In 1638 the Newport ironworks were leased to two major iron-masters, William Boycott and William Fownes who in 1635 were already running a blast-furnace and its associated forges in north-west Shropshire. In 1655 these premises were leased afresh to William Boycott, Francis Walker an iron-master of Bringewood and John Newborough of Stourbridge. By 1680 when Richard Newport married Mary Wilbraham the marriage settlement mentions both the furnace at Leighton and the forge in Sheinton.

By 1681 William Boycott had become a partner of Thomas Newport the son of Richard and we find Boycott’s name mentioned in a number of iron-works across Shropshire. William Boycott was succeeded by his sons Sylvanus and Francis who in 1664 received a coat of arms from King Charles the Second for their families contribution in supplying armaments to the Royalist cause in the Civil War. For their coat of arms the Boycotts chose three ‘granadoes’ (fire balls which were shot from a mortar). It is quite probable that such weapons were cast at their furnace in Leighton and their forge in Sheinton.

In the seventeenth century an iron-forge was a place where pig-iron from a blast-furnace was converted into wrought-iron. We know that in 1717 the output of wrought-iron from the Sheinton forge was 100 tons of iron per year, Coalbrookdale only managed 80 tons! As the map shows the forge was served by two leats that provided the water source for two water-wheels, these drove the hammers and furnaces of the Finery and the Chafery forges.

The forge accounts of the late 17th century show that different grades of pig-iron were used in the forge, some supplied from Leighton and some brought up the River Severn. They show that wood for making charcoal was purcased from local landowners and that the bars of wrought-iron produced were then exported to various customers by river transport.