Kingswood Heritage Museum

William Champion of Bristol patented an efficient new method for smelting zinc in 1738. Zinc was needed to make brass by alloying it with copper. Champion created the Warmley Brass and Copper Company in 1746 and set up a large integrated brass works at Warmley, on the eastern edge of the Bristol conurbation. Parts of the works are now Kingswood Heritage Museum, including a windmill tower and a horse-operated mill. Features that survive in other uses nearby include Champion’s house and landscaped gardens and a factory with a clocktower where he made pins with brass wire from about 1760. At the museum, a gallery is dedicated to Champion’s work and the interpretation of the site, including models of a zinc foundry and workers’ housing. The museum also has displays about other industries in the area: coal mining from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century, shoemaking factories (50 of which employed 11,000 people before the First World War), the Douglas motorcycle factory and a brush factory.