The Catcliffe Glass Cone is a

glass cone A glass cone is a glass production structure historically unique to the United Kingdom. A glass cone had a large central furnace, a circular platform where the glassblowers worked, and smaller furnaces around its wall to ensure the glass did not c ...

in the village of

Catcliffe Catcliffe is a village and civil parish on the north-west bank of the River Rother in South Yorkshire, England. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 2,108. It is in the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham, approximately sout ...

South Yorkshire South Yorkshire is a ceremonial and metropolitan county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. The county has four council areas which are the cities of Doncaster and Sheffield as well as the boroughs of Barnsley and Rotherham. I ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

. It is the oldest surviving structure of its type in

Western Europe Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean ...

, and it is a Grade I

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern I ...

and

Scheduled Ancient Monument In the United Kingdom, a scheduled monument is a nationally important archaeological site or historic building, given protection against unauthorised change. The various pieces of legislation that legally protect heritage assets from damage and d ...

. Only three other glass cones survive in the United Kingdom; at

Lemington Lemington is an area and electoral ward of Newcastle upon Tyne in North East England. History Lemington has a strong industrial history. It is famous for its brick glassworks cone, built in 1787. The River Tyne The River Tyne is a riv ...

Wordsley Wordsley is a suburban area of Stourbridge in the West Midlands, England. It is part of the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley and falls into the Stourbridge (DY8) postcode and address area, being just north of the River Stour. Wordsley is part of th ...

and

Alloa Alloa (Received Pronunciation ; educated Scottish pronunciation /ˈaloʊa/; gd, Alamhagh, possibly meaning "rock plain") is a town in Clackmannanshire in the Central Lowlands of Scotland. It is on the north bank of the Forth at the spot where ...

. The glassworks cone was part of the Catcliffe glassworks, which was established in 1740 by William Fenney. Fenney had previously been the manager of the glassworks at

Bolsterstone Bolsterstone is a village in South Yorkshire, England, south of Stocksbridge, and 8.5 miles to the northwest of the City of Sheffield and within the city borough. It lies on the border of the Peak District national park. Bolsterstone had a pop ...

that was owned by his mother-in-law. The site at Catcliffe was chosen in part because the terms of her will prevented him from setting up a glassworks within of the works at Bolsterstone and Catcliffe is away. The glassworks closed c.1887, but was reopened briefly in 1900. The brick cone has archways around the base to allow maximum air entry. It is approximately high. Although

glassmaking Glass production involves two main methods – the float glass process that produces sheet glass, and glassblowing that produces bottles and other containers. It has been done in a variety of ways during the history of glass. Glass containe ...

is an ancient process, it was carried out on a small scale until the development of industrialised methods in Europe allowed it to be

mass-produced Mass production, also known as flow production or continuous production, is the production of substantial amounts of standardized products in a constant flow, including and especially on assembly lines. Together with job production and batc ...

. The fusion of

silica Silicon dioxide, also known as silica, is an oxide of silicon with the chemical formula , most commonly found in nature as quartz and in various living organisms. In many parts of the world, silica is the major constituent of sand. Silica is o ...

and

sodium oxide Sodium oxide is a chemical compound with the formula Na2 O. It is used in ceramics and glasses. It is a white solid but the compound is rarely encountered. Instead "sodium oxide" is used to describe components of various materials such as glass ...

in a furnace was usually achieved by the burning of wood; but coal was often used instead in Britain, which prompted the development of the glass cone. Glass cones consisted of a large central furnace, a flue to carry waste gas to the top of the structure and away, smaller furnaces around the walls to ensure the finished products stayed warm, and a circular platform on which workers stood while making their glassware. Although invented earlier, they became commonplace in the early 19th century; but further innovations in the glassmaking industry made the

float glass Float glass is a sheet of glass made by floating molten glass on a bed of molten metal, typically tin, although lead and other various low-melting-point alloys were used in the past. This method gives the sheet uniform thickness and very flat sur ...

production method more efficient and allowed manufacture to be based in fewer but larger works. Most cones were knocked down after they fell out of use, and by the mid-1970s only four survived: the Alloa cone (the only example in Scotland), Catcliffe Glass Cone, Lemington Glass Cone in

Tyne and Wear Tyne and Wear () is a metropolitan county in North East England, situated around the mouths of the rivers Tyne and Wear. It was created in 1974, by the Local Government Act 1972, along with five metropolitan boroughs of Gateshead, Newcast ...

, and

Red House Cone The Red House Cone is a glass cone located in Wordsley in the West Midlands, adjacent to the Stourbridge Canal bridge on the A491 High Street. It is a high conical brick structure with a diameter of , used for the production of glass. It ...

, West Midlands. In the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fig ...

the site was used as a prisoner-of-war camp and, as a canteen during the

1926 United Kingdom general strike The 1926 general strike in the United Kingdom was a general strike that lasted nine days, from 4 to 12 May 1926. It was called by the General Council of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in an unsuccessful attempt to force the Government of the ...

. The cone was threatened with demolition in the 1960s so the foundations of the other buildings that comprised the glassworks were excavated in 1962. In 1968 the cone received Grade I listing. Access to the site was closed in 2006 as bricks were falling from the top of the structure. Restoration work was undertaken in 2014.

References

{{coord, 53.3926, -1.3617, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title Grade I listed buildings in South Yorkshire Scheduled monuments in South Yorkshire Grade I listed monuments and memorials Glass industry

See also

References