This issue contains four substantial articles. The editors consider their length to be justified by the significance of their subject matter and the comprehensive coverage of it which they provide. However, we do not wish readers to assume that all submissions to this journal need to be on this scale. We would be delighted to receive shorter contributions, too — for example, pieces presenting the interim findings of long-term research, descriptions of small-scale investigations and matters for debate. If you have any ideas of this nature, please get in touch.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Lower Swansea Valley in South Wales was the largest centre of copper production and processing copper in the world. This dominance continued well into the 20th century and earned the area the name ‘Copperopolis’. That was also the title of Stephen Hughes’ splendid book, published in 2000, which documented the historical and archaeological legacies of this industry. The article here, by Rhys Morgan, Libby Langlands, Tom Henderson and Richard Lewis, brings that story up to date, describing the results of extensive archaeological investigation of the Haford Plate Rolling Mill, which operated between 1910 and 1980, and was a major component of the Hafod-Morfa Copperworks, whose history dates back to the start of the 19th century. This project has yielded significant discoveries relating to the mill’s power supply and rolling operations and, in conjunction with historical evidence, has enabled the complex operation of the site to be properly understood and described for the first time.
One of the key steps in the process of industrialisation, particularly in Britain, was the migration at the start of the 19th century of textile manufacturing from rural, water-powered sites to emerging urban centres like Manchester and Leeds, where huge new factories utilised steam power. In the forefront of this was Salford Twist Mill, a complex of multi-storey cotton-spinning mills, built between 1790 and 1801. The last phase of this was the first of hundreds of Lancashire cotton mills to adopt the so-called ‘fireproof’ construction of brick and iron, only around three years after this was pioneered at Ditherington Flax Mill. Salford Twist Mill was amongst the first factories in the region to have been steam powered and was the first large building in the world to have been lit by gas: the technical and economic success of this latter innovation here was hugely influential in the birth of the gas industry.
Had Salford Twist Mill been standing today, it would have been one of the icons of the industrial revolution but, sadly, the last remnants of the complex were destroyed by bombing in the Second World War. Archaeological investigations ahead of redevelopment of the site in 2016–17 provided a unique opportunity to learn more about this revolutionary factory, and my co-editor, Ian Miller, presents the results of that work here, enabling, amongst other things, the place of Salford Twist Mill in the evolution of iron-framed buildings to be properly understood for the first time.
One of the first industries to use gas for process purposes (as opposed to its use for lighting, as at Salford Twist Mill) was ceramics manufacture; the controllability, flexibility and cleanliness of gas brought many advantages over coal. Our article by David Barker and Richard Gregory describes the results of archaeological investigations at the Royal Doulton works in Stoke-on-Trent which focused on the puzzling remains of an unusual large circular kiln. This was found to have been a revolutionary gas-fired Woodall-Duckham annular tunnel kiln, built around 1928. The authors show how the adoption of this type of continuous-firing technology played a crucial part in the modernisation of ceramics manufacture in the 20th century.
Our final article takes us to the Czech Republic where, as in many other parts of the world, textile manufacture grew from domestic origins in the medieval period, through a proto-industrial phase to factory-scale production in the 19th century. Authors Róbert Antal, František Kolář, Michaela Ryšková and Hynek Zbranek here present the results of six years of archaeological investigations at a number of textile-dyeing sites, the earliest of which dates back to the early 18th century. The survival of the remains is, in many cases, quite remarkable, and they reveal much valuable information about the dyeing processes, which are similar to those employed elsewhere. A first for IAR is the inclusion of an Abstract in Czech, which we hope will bring this work to the attention of more people in its home country.
On a personal note, I am hoping that this will be the last Editorial I write for this journal. Having been a co-editor for over ten years, I think it is time to introduce someone new into the team. If anyone is interested in finding out what this entails, please get in touch. The growth in the use of video-conferencing means that it does not matter where in the world the editors are based.