Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Does Anyone Else Find Iron Smelting Slag in their Garden
For years I've been finding in my garden lumpy bits of what looks to me like slag from smelting Iron. I'd been assuming that it was related to the occupation at Harringay House since my house is very close indeed to the site of the house. However, one of the estate plans published by the British Land Company shows no building of any sort just where my garden is.
It's not just one or two pieces. It's a lot. I used to just throw them away. But, fearing it will all soon be gone, I've started preserving the pieces I find now.
I've begun to wonder, even if there was a building associated with the estate just where my garden is, would they really have been smelting iron or any sort of metal (especially in full view of the southern aspect of the house - all the functional buildings seem to have been to the west). Ironworking, like fashioning horse shoes for sure, but smelting iron? So I've begun to wonder if the smelting could have been from any earlier sort of occupation.
I'm trying not to let my fancies run away with me, but would be interested in finding a possible explanation. There's probably a simple and very mundane one, but I don't want to close off other possibilities.....just yet.
Does anyone else find anything similar? Does anyone have any ideas for an explanation?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Colinloves on
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That dont look like coal. Thats iron.......weight will tell you for sure
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Permalink Reply by Harringay 4eva on
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I agree with Tris. Based on my admittedly non-existent geology knowledge, it does look like clinker lumps from a coal fire.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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I appreciate your thoughts H4e, but both its weight and consistency are very different from any clinker I’ve raked out of the fire. I’m quite confident that it’s not clinker.
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Permalink Reply by EMC2 on
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Perhaps it's a by-product of the old town gas company formerly on Clarendon Road?
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Permalink Reply by andy thomas on
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Could be since the stuff in Hugh's photo looks rough & porous, rather than glass-like, like flint.
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Thanks Eugene. Did their processes produce slag? If so, do you know if it’s known to have found it’s way into other gardens.
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If it is anything to do with waste from an old Gas Works contact your local Environmental Officer as many highly toxic chemicals seeped out and into the ground (including cyanide) in the process. Not joking!
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Lead???
When these houses were built masses of lead was used. if I were the builder for a terrace I'd be manufacturing the water pipes and lead welding in one location to minimise the fire risk, and using the pipes and flashing across the houses in the terrace. Although health and safety was crude in those days there's a long history of buildings burning from lead working. St Paul's Covent Garden being one example, completely destroyed the roof and interior hence the later interior design.
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Is this blast furnace clinker? This is a hard, black or very dark-coloured glassy substance which was an uwanted by-product from coke-fuelled blast furnaces for smelting iron. It was commonly used in the second half of the 19th century to make garden walls and you can see good examples of this at the bottom of Rathcoole Gardens, the bottom of Uplands Rd and the eastern end of Weston Park.
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Thanks. I’m not familiar with furnace clinker, but I think it might be another term for slag. So it could be that. I don’t have the expertise to be able to differentiate blast furnace slag from other sorts. But I di wonder what a blast furnace would have been doing on the Ladder.
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