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Iron was dug out of the ground by hand and moved around the pit by wheel barrow. This was time consuming and hard work. It didn't do much for production either. By 1895 Lloyds decided they needed a mechanical digger and one was acquired - a Wilson steam crane navvy with an 11 cubic yard bucket.
This was the first time a mechanical digger (pictured) was used in the UK to dig iron ore. Many more diggers were acquired, but still not happy with the amount of ore produced, in 1905 Lloyds looked further afield for larger and more powerful machines. Their search ended at the Panama canal where large steam shovels could be found working on its construction. Lloyds purchased and imported a large steam shovel that ran on rails from Atlantic Equipment Company, with a bucket of 30 cubic yards.
This photo shows plant development in 1933. In the middle of the photo are the blast furnaces. In front of them and across the railway tracks are fields, and a little section of Rockingham Road can be spotted. The fields are where Stewarts and Lloyds were to build some of the housing estates for their workers, along with schools and churches.
Behind the blast furnaces, but at the front of the picture, the steel works and tube mills were to be constructed. The tube mills can be seen today. The first of the new build can be seen - Stewarts and Lloyds Iron & Steel works offices, and we are erecting the date stones (portico) from that office as part of this project.
In 1910 Lloyds built and opened two blast furnaces, which can both be seen in the background of this picture. In the foreground we can see the first house's built for the workers, known as Lloyds Cottages. They had no running wateR - tenants had to get water from shallow wells, one at each end of the cottages.
If people didn't get there early enough they got no water. Some time later the tenants complained about dampness in the cottages and demanded something be done about it, not a problem for the landlord. One morning workmen arrived with hot tar and painted it all over the houses. From then on they were known as the Black Houses. They would have been situated around where the Fire Station is now. A path led to them from Tunwell Lane. You had to pass through the kissing gate to get onto it.
Here is the Iron and Steel works office complete with its very own door man who is standing below the portico.
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