Geograph - photograph every grid square

Detail of the furnace during the molten iron extraction into the hot metal railway cars. The heat can only be imagined.

During the mid 19th century there were 40 furnaces aligning the River Tees producing two million tons of cast iron annually. When in the 1870s Bessemer invented a method of turning iron into steel the number of furnaces began to contract. The Redcar Blast Furnace is the sole remaining one but in August 2009 Corus plan to mothball the site because of the low demand for steel.

An end of an era?