British Steel – Scunthorpe

This video provides a refreshing and inspiring insight into the steel manufacturing industry and the people who make it happen.

The Iron and Steel Industry in Scunthorpe was established in the mid 19th century, following the discovery and exploitation of middle Lias ironstone east of Scunthorpe.

In 1967 three works became part of the nationalised British Steel Corporation.

Following privatisation in 1988, the company together with the rest of BSC became part of Corus in 1999, in 2007 becoming Tata Steel Europe. In 2016 the long products division of Tata Steel Europe was sold to Greybull Capital with Scunthorpe as the primary steel production site.

Wikipedia

I took a brake van trip on the Appleby Frodingham Railway, touring the site’s network of working rail which encircles the works.

Very much in the spirit of Charles Sheeler’s Ford River Rouge Plant photographs, I was enthralled by the mass of massive buildings and their attendant infrastructure.

This is architecture on the grandest scale, the main furnace house being higher than St Pauls Cathedral.

This is what I saw:

Scunthorpe Post Office and Telephone Exchange

Architect: John Haswell 1939

Opened on 2nd March 1939 and closed in 1992.

A rare excursion into modernism by the inter-war year’s Office of Works architects, as are both Beckenham and Penarth post offices.

British Post Office Architects.

Beckenham

Architect: Frederick Llewellyn 1939

Penarth

Architect Albert Myers 1936

Walking back to the train station, following a day out at the steel works, I espied the Post Office.

Next door is the sorting office.

And next for to the sorting office is the telephone exchange.