Seend Ironstone Mine (?)
Seend, Wiltshire KAC58.26 (roughly)
KandAC mile 58
Remains of the tramroad embankment on the south side of the canal.
In the lower greensand stratum at Seend there is a layer if ironstone which supported mining for iron ore. The disturbed ground is visible to the south of the canal. It is said that:-
Few areas of Wiltshire could have caused such financial loss as those ten acres west of Seend.
At first the ore was dug out and sent by canal to smelting in south Wales. Later the Great Western Iron Ore Smelting Co built two blast furnaces here and constructed a tramroad linking ironworks to canal and railway. They went bankrupt, 1859, and were taken over by the Wiltshire Iron Co, 1861, and lasted 7 years. Smelting began about 1860s; by the 1870s 300 men worked, extracting 300 tons of iron per week; the ironworks was demolished 1889. The Westbury and Seend Ore and Oxide Co bought the quarry, 1905. Ore was mined to 1946. Ore was taken by tramroad to the canal, and later over the canal on a bridge by the road bridge, to continue to the railway to the north. The tram was replaced by an overhead cableway in the early 20th century.
All that remains are grassy humps. The house with turrets, visible from the canal, was the ironmasters house, called Ferrum Towers. Its name has unhappily been thrown away.
Ferrum towers hiding in the trees; its name is now something meaningless.
Remains of the tramroad embankment going north from the canal towards the railway.
Barron, R S: 1976: Geology of Wiltshire: Moonraker Press (Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire):: ISBN 0 239 00165 6
Ponting, K (ed):: Industrial Archaeology of Wiltshire

Kennet and Avon Scrapbook 2000