Aroundtown Magazine May June 2023 edition

ELSECAR
Elsecar: Discover more
with a heritage tour
Learning about a place’s history
is so much more interesting
when out in the field compared
to just reading about it.
So, this summer, pop down and join the
knowledgeable heritage experts on one of the
guided tours at Elsecar Heritage Centre to dig
deeper into the site’s fascinating past.
Right Royal
Elsecar Tours
Every Saturday and Sunday at 2pm
£5 per person
The 4th Earl Fitzwilliam built Elsecar to
show off his family’s vast influence and vision.
He transformed a farming landscape into
one of the first model villages, sinking pits,
cutting the canal, building two ironworks and
designing housing for his workers. The New Yard
workshops would come later, as too would his
personal railway station.
Almost all of the buildings remain intact and
16 of them now have listed status.
This season, join the team for a very special
unique guided tour featuring stories of royal
visits, including when Queen Victoria marvelled
at a specially mined column of Elsecar coal.
34 aroundtownmagazine.co.uk
Furnaces to Follies
History Hike
Saturday 20th May at 11am
£12 per person
The Earl Fitzwilliam empire was unique
in that it included both the family estate at
Wentworth and their industrial estate just a
stone’s throw away in Elsecar. Both serve as
a spectacular reminder of the industrial legacy
they once forged.
This new guided history hike is a five-mile
route that encompasses both villages. Starting
at Elsecar Heritage Centre, the tour will head
up to Wentworth with talks about some of the
prominent buildings such as the two churches
and of course the resplendent Wentworth
Woodhouse.
After a pit-stop at the garden centre, the
tour guide will then take the group up to
Hoober Stand built for the 1st Marquess of
Rockingham in 1748. This is just one of the
many follies in the Wentworth estate; the tour
will also pass Needle’s Eye on the route back
to Elsecar with a panoramic view of Keppel’s
Great Engine
Demonstrations
Sundays 28th May, 11th June, 25th June,
23rd July and Thursday 6th July at 12pm
and 1pm - £6 per person
The Earl’s proudest component of his
industrial empire was the Newcomen Beam
Engine that he called his Great Engine.
It was built in 1795 to pump water from
the deep Elsecar New Colliery that was sunk
the same year, allowing miners to extract coal
closer to the seam. It could pump 50 gallons of
water a minute and was in operation until 1923
when it was replaced by electric pumps.
Newcomen engines are historically
significant as they were the first device to
harness steam to produce mechanical work – a
giant step forward in the history of engineering.
Elsecar’s engine is now the world’s oldest
steam engine still in place.
It became a Scheduled Ancient Monument in
1973 but the area became wild and overgrown
once the collieries closed in the 1980s.
Decades since it was last used, the bearings
had become locked and a tree was growing
from the headgear.
Conservation work began in 2014 where a
team of engineers and volunteers took the Great
Engine apart bit by bit, repairing each piece
before putting it all back together again.
The monthly demonstrations give visitors an
Column in the distance.
Please note parts of the route include
uneven ground, slopes and stiles so
appropriate clothing and footwear is
necessary.
There will also be another history hike
planned after the summer months in
September.
up-close view of the Great Engine with its bright
red cylinder and pump rods. Look down the
shaft and see the engine at work - now powered
by hydraulics rather than steam.
Hear more interesting stories such as how
the engine’s winding shaft was dug by hand by
two colliery workers, why the Earl turned down a
blank cheque offer from car manufacturer Henry
Ford, and how the Newcomen’s technology and
innovation sparked the Industrial Revolution.
To book a place on any of these tours
please call the Visitor Centre on
01226 740203 or email
elsecarheritagecentre@barnsley.gov.uk
www.elsecar-heritage.com