Location: Rockley Furnace
Date: N/A
Time: 19:00 Hours
E.M.F. Reading: No.
Investigators: Lee S. Ozzie, Simon, Amie, Dan, Glen,
Equipment used: Dictaphone, Camcorder with Night shot, Ir lights, camera's - ramsey tri field meter
Experiments: None
Map: No

Rockley Furnace Ghost Investigation Rotherham,

The furnace.

Built between 1698 and 1704, the furnace formed part of a trade syndicate in Yorkshire centered on the Spencers of Cannon Hall. It operated until 1741 with Charcoal as fuel.

It is thought that the furnace operated again around 1790, using coke fuel, to produce gun casting.

Rockley Furnace made Cast Iron in the eighteenth century, using ores mined in the same valley and charcoal from the surrounding woodlands

This furnace was probably built about 1700, for by 1704 there would appear to have been two furnaces in the valley, the other having been started in 1652, 500 metres to the west.

The Engine House.
The engine house once housed a newcomen type pumping engine that kept an iron mine dry. The house is built from sandstone and with its castellated top now looks a little like a folly. It has a date stone bearing the date 1813, but it is thought that the mine predates this.

The engine is said to have been moved to the Chapletown area around 1870.

There is a cutting to the east of the enginehouse that was the trackbed of the Pilley Hills Colliery Branch of the Worsborough Railway.

It has been suggested that the mine may also have produced coal. The coal in this area is at a deeper level than the iron and mining maps of the area do not show any working in this area in the coal seams.

Bought along with the Rockley Furnace (in 1957), the engine house has been the subject of major conservation work afew years back.