The Round Oak Iron Works The
Ward family, Lords of
Dudley Castle, came to own and control a wide range of industrial concerns in the Black Country of the nineteenth century. The family owned land in the region as well as extensive mineral rights. In 1855, the Dudley Estate commenced the construction of the Round Oak Iron Works at Brierley Hill under the supervision of the estate's mineral agent,
Richard Smith. The site was next to the
Dudley Canal and two railway systems: the public railway run by the
Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway and the
Pensnett Railway, a mineral line owned by the Dudley Estate itself. Also nearby were the Level New Furnaces (also known as the New Level Furnaces) where blast furnaces, owned by the Dudley Estate could supply
pig iron for the new iron works at Round Oak. The iron works commenced production in 1857. It was a large-scale operation: on its opening it employed 600 men, and the equipment included 28
puddling furnaces and five mills. In 1862, the works won a Prize Medal at the
International Exhibition. The works were extended between 1865 and 1868, and were then capable of producing 550 tons of finished iron per week. The price of the works was set at £110,000 of which £10,000 was paid in cash and the remainder by a mortgage provided by the Dudley estate itself. The chairman of the new company was Mr Richard Dalgleish and the managing director was Mr R. Smith Casson. Steel was first produced in August 1894. However, the company had run into financial difficulty and on 26 November 1894, the company went into liquidation, resulting in repossession by the Dudley Estate. In 1904, the works were described as consisting of: "iron works for the manufacture of high-class bar iron; chain works for the manufacture of chain; and steel works for the manufacture of Siemens-Martin steel in bars of every variety of section". It was also stated that the steelworks "comprise five large open-hearth-steel melting furnaces, standing in a shop 350 ft. long by 90 ft. wide." The Bertrand-Thiel process of making steel was being used at the works. , brought about the management changes that improved the prospects of the steelworks in the 1920s The works prospered until just after the
First World War when the firm faced a financial crisis due to a national depression combined with weaknesses at the plant itself The company's name was changed to Round Oak Steel Works Limited on 14 December 1936. At the end of the
Second World War, it was found necessary to carry out a modernisation of the plant, which cost over £4,000,000, the financing coming from the Finance Corporation for Industry Limited. The works were nationalised by the British Government in 1951, but were sold to
Tube Investments in 1953. Tube Investments paid £1.4 million and took responsibility for the repayment of loans totaling £4.2million. The 3½ mile-long railway between the steelworks and Baggeridge closed in September 1966. The plant was re-nationalized in 1967, becoming part of
British Steel although the works continued to be part managed by Tube Investments. By the 1970s, the plant's future was in doubt and the workforce was shrinking. The plant had employed around 3,000 workers at its peak, but by 1982 that figure had fallen to around 1,200. An image of the works was used for the
cover art for the
Depeche Mode album
Some Great Reward released in 1984.
Closure By the late 1970s, jobs were being axed at the plant, which had employed around 2,500 people at its peak, and British Steel was planning to close it down completely. The plant finally closed on 23 December 1982, after 125 years of steel production, with the loss of more than 1,200 jobs. Demolition work took place during 1984, when the land purchased by
Don and Roy Richardson, who in October that year were given the go-ahead to build a shopping complex on nearby farmland.
Redevelopment of the site The farmland which stood in the shadow of Round Oak Steelworks was designated by the Government as an
Enterprise Zone in 1980, being extended to include the site of the works in 1984 — the same year that the Round Oak buildings were demolished. In October 1984, Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council approved the plans of local twin brothers Don and Roy Richardson to build a retail park and shopping mall on the farmland. The first retail units were occupied in the autumn of 1985, and by April 1986 the first phase of the
Merry Hill Shopping Centre had been completed. The site was gradually expanded until the final phase opened in November 1989. Merry Hill brought thousands of jobs to the local area and spearheaded a region-wide transition from manufacturing to services as the key employer of local workers, although many of the new shopping centre's jobs were occupied by people who had worked in other locations - mostly Dudley town centre = until the retailers decided to relocate to new units at Merry Hill. The first businesses did not move onto the steelworks site until December 1990, when new offices were completed as part of the Waterfront development. Despite the closure of the works in 1982, a
steel terminal was opened on the adjacent railway in August 1986 and is still in use. ==References==