Latest News:
15.05.13
ERIH Annual Conference 2013 - Save the date - Call for papers now open
ERIH Annual Conference 2013 – Back in the Ruhr Subject:...
15.04.13
ERIH Board meeting in Katowice/Poland
On invitation of the Silesian Voivodeship the ERIH board met in Katowice/Poland and discussed with...
01.03.13
Review of the ERIH Annual Conference 2012
More than 100 delegates from 15 European Countries attended the ERIH Conference 2012 in September...
The glow of the blast furnaces. European Theme Route Iron & Steel
Two steps are needed to make iron and steel – the key materials of the industrial era - from iron ore. First, the ore has to be smelted in the blast furnace to produce pig iron, which is then refined in the fire to produce wrought iron or steel. Both steps are dependent on the type of fuel used. Hard coal is not suitable for producing iron because its trace elements, above all sulphur, can damage the metal. For this reason charcoal was used in furnaces and forges until the start of the 18th century when a shortage of firewood made it very expensive.
more >>
E |
Langreo | Museum of the Steel Industry |
 |
Ciudad Tecnológica Valnalón C/ Hornos Altos s/n | 33930 Langreo | Spain |
| Mining and the making of iron and steel were the principal economic activities from in Asturias from the mid-19th century until the closing years of the 20th century.
The Museum of the Steel Indus... more >> |
F |
Le Creusot | Creusot-Montceau Ecomuseum |
|
Chateau de la Verrerie | 71200 Le Creusot | France |
| Le Creusot in Burgundy is a place of prime importance in the industrial history of Europe. In the 1780s ironworks and glassworks utilising technology from England were established there by William Wil... more >> |
E |
Legazpi | Basque Iron Museum |
|
Mirandaola ParkeaTelleriate auzoa, z/g | 20230 Legazpi | Spain |
| Legazpi, 45 km south-west of San Sebastian, is the chief town of the Urola-Garaia region. Ironmaking has a long history in the area, but the industry was of particular importance from the mid-nineteen... more >> |
D |
Leverkusen | Industrial Museum Freudenthal Scythe Forge |
 |
Freudenthal 68 | 51375 Leverkusen | Germany |
| The River Dhünn doesn’t look powerful enough to drive a factory. But it did just that for exactly two hundred years. And what a factory it is! The transmission wheels alone are gigantic. And the ma... more >> |
D |
Lichterfeld | Overburden Conveyer Bridge F60 |
 |
Bergheider Straße 4 | 03238 Lichterfeld | Germany |
| It looks like the Eiffel tower, only it’s called F60 and is situated in the Lausitz countryside near Lichterfeld. We’re talking about the largest existing overburden conveyor gantry which has ever... more >> |
B |
Liège | Maison de la Metallurgie et de l´Industrie de Liège - Route du Feu |
|
Boulevard Raymond Poincaré 17 | 4020 Liège | Belgium |
| The location and the building fit the museum perfectly: an old industrial quarter somewhat away from the centre of Liège, a disused sheet metal factory, which was set up by the Dothée brothers in 18... more >> |
I |
Longiano | Italian Museum of Cast-iron |
|
47020 Longiano | Italy |
| The museum at Longiano, a town in Emilia Romagna of some 5,500 people, 90 km south-east of Bologna, displays the many practical and decorative uses to which cast-iron has been put, in Italy, and throu... more >> |
D |
Lüdenscheid | Bremecker Hammer Museum of Forging |
|
Brüninghauser Straße 95 | 58513 Lüdenscheid | Germany |
| Picture an idyllic valley dotted with attractive ponds which have built up here along the River Bremecke. They were once needed to provide the necessary water power for the many hammer works in the ne... more >> |
D |
Magdeburg | Magdeburg Technical Museum |
|
Dodendorfer Straße 65 | 39112 Magdeburg | Germany |
| If there is one feature which unites the exhibits in the Magdeburg Technical Museum, it is pioneering spirit. This is immediately obvious in the threshing equipment manufactured by the Magdeburg compa... more >> |
I |
Massa Marittima | Mininig Museum |
|
via Corridoni | Massa Marittima | Italy |
| The hills around Massa Marittima, 45 km south-west of Siena, have been extensively mined for various metallic ores and for building stone. The mining museum is located in the town’s central square b... more >> |
GB |
Merthyr Tydfil | Cyfarthfa Castle, Museum & Art Gallery |
|
Brecon Road | CF47 8RE Merthyr Tydfil | Great Britain |
| Cyfarthfa Castle was built in 1824 by the ironmaster William Crawshay the second. It overlooked his immensely successful ironworks which were the largest in the world in the first quarter of the ninet... more >> |
D |
Merzig | Fellenberg mill fine mechanical workshop |
|
Marienstraße 34 | 66663 Merzig | Germany |
| Coal is not the only source of power: but also water. Water power is responsible for rotating the transmission belts and driving the engines in the Fellenberg mill in the Saarland. As one of the few r... more >> |
H |
Miskolc-Újmassa | Massa Museum and Blast Furnace |
|
Omassai utca | 3517 Miskolc-Újmassa | Hungary |
| Miscolc, in the Bukk region of northern Hungary, is the country’s third largest city, and since the late 1940s the huge Lenin Metallurgical Plant has been located in its surburb of Diosgyor. Many ir... more >> |
GB |
Moira | Moira furnace |
|
Furnace Lane | DE12 6AJ Moira | Great Britain |
| The blast furnace at Moira in the coalfield of north-west Leicester was built between 1804 and 1806 and worked for only two campaigns, the last of them in 1810-11. It was adapted as housing in the 19t... more >> |
F |
Montbard | La Grande Forge de Buffon |
|
21500 Montbard | France |
| The integrated ironworks near Montbard, established in 1768-72 by the great naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon (1707-82), incorporated the most advanced thinking of its era. It consists of a b... more >> |
