INDUSTRIAL ARCHAEOLOGY 108SPRING 1 999 THE BULLETIN OF THE ASSOCIATION FOR INDUSTRIAL ARCHAEOLOGY 95 pence FREE TO MEMBERS OF AIA Copperas o Devon conference o Arty gasholders o Dubrovnik regional news o current research o Cruquius o limeworks o beer conference tr**tt\ Copperas, the first maior chemical industry in England 4TS Tim Allen Constantinople to the Turks in 1 453, the Genoese INDUSTRIAL returned to ltaly and re-established the industry at From 1995 onward1 an extraotdinary array of Tolfa under Papal monopoly. ARCI{AEOLOGY timber posts set in bright red-orange mortar was The Whitstable copperas industry revolved exposed by marine erosion on the Tankerton around the production of fenous sulphate, known NEWS 108 foreshore atWhitstable, Kent. ln 1997, Canterbury as 'copperas'and 'green vitriol' but confusingly, Spring 1999 Archaeological Trust began a two-year also identified by the generic terms 'alum' and investigation to identify these remains. Some of 'brimstone', the latter denoting sulphur or sulphur- the remains were identified as part of a late rich materials. Copperas was produced from fenous President sixteenth/seventeenth-century copperas works, disulphide (iron pyrite), othenrvise'copperas stones' Dr Michael Harrison 19 Sandles Close, The Ridings, Droitwich Spa WR9 8RB evidence of perhaps the first major chemical or'gold stones'. The pyrite occurs as nodules within industry to be established in England. lt later London Clay, an Eocene deposit ubiquitous in the Vice-President Dr Marilyn Palmer became clear that the southern copperas industry Thames Basin. Copperas works therefore School of Archaeological Studies, The University, Leicester had played a prominent and previously proliferated around the Thames estuary, especially LE1 7RH unsuspected role in the industrialisation of the on the Essex and north Kent coasts, where the Treasurel national economy from the late sixteenth to the nodules are washed out by the action of the sea. Michael Messenger late eighteenth centuries and that no Production was also established where pyrite 144 Lake Road East Roath Pa*, CardiffCF2 5NQ comprehensive history for this industry had occurs on the coasts of Hampshire, the lsle of Wight Secretary previously been conpiled. Consequently, its and Dorset. In the latter case, pyrite was mined Paul Sillitoe economic importance and its complex relation with from deposits of the Bagshot and Bracklesham 4l Victoria Road, Wednesfield, Wolverhampton WVl1 IRV the sixteenth/seventeenth-century immigrations Beds, near Bournemouth. from the Low Country have not previously been Copperas was produced by a long, noxious and lA Review Editors Peter Neaverson and Dr Marilyn Palmer recognised. Nor has the industry's role as the basis dangerous process involving hundreds of gallons School of Archaeological Studies, The University, Leicester for the modern chenical and pharmaceutical of boiling liquid containing sulphuric acid. LE1 7RH industries received sufficient recognition. The Evocatively, lhe Kentish iazette rcpofted in I 788 lA Nervs Editor Canterbury Archaeological Trust's work won the that '... as John Wellard, one of the men who work Dr Peter Stanier AIA's Fieldwork and Recording Award for 1998, at the copperas houses at Whitstable, was assisting 49 Breach Lane, Shaftesbury Do6et 5P7 8LF as reported in lA News 107 , pp8-9. A fuller report in running the copperas ink coolers, he Conference Secretary is planned forlA Review. unfortunately slipped in up to the breast...in 24 Janet Graham in hours after, 107 Haddenham Road. Leicester LE3 28G hours a mortification ensued and two Copperas is a vitriol (a metal/sulphate, generally he expired.' Aff iliated Societies Off icer termed 'alumen'in antiquity), the production and The principal importance of copperas was as Gordon Knowles 7 Squirrels Green, Great Bookham, Leatherhead, Suney uses of which were known to the ancients. Vitriols a dye fixative for woollens. Thus, copperas was KT23 3TE are described by Herodotus and Pliny and by greatly in demand as long as woollens dominated Sales Officer medieval authors, with the Spanish Moor Jabir-ibn- the English export trade. lt was also used Roger Ford Hayyan (AD721-81 5) distinguishing between green extensively in the embryonic chemical and Bam Cottage, Bridge Street Bridgenorth, 5hropshire vitriol (ferrous sulphate) and blue vitriol (copper pharmaceutical industries and for many other WV15 6AF sulphate). By the fourteenth century, vitriol purposes (tanning, the manufacture of printer's ink, Publicity Officel production was centred in Asia Minor and as a black dye, as sheep dip), all of which increased Anne Alderton by a Genoese syndicate. the produce 48 Quay Street Halesworth, Suffolk lPl9 8EY controlled With fall of its value. Pyrite may have been used to Fieldwork and Recording Award fficer Shane Gould Archaeology Advisory Group, Planning, Essex County Council, County Hall, Chelmsford, Essex CM1 I [F Honorary Vice-Presidents Prof Angus Buchanan Sir Neil Cossons John Hume Stuart B. Smith Council Members Dr V. Beauchamp Dr R. J. M, Carr M. Coulter (co-opted) J. Crompton D. Eve (co-opted) G. Knowles H. Malaws (co-opted) A. Parkes J. Powell P. Saulter (co-opted) S. Warburton C. Whittaker T. & M. Yoward (co-opted) Liaison fficer lsabel Wilson AIA 0ffice, School of Archaeological Studies, University of Leicester, Leicester [E1 7RH. t 01162525337, Fax: 0115 252 5005, e-mail: [email protected] COVER PICTURE All aboard forthe Lynton-Lynmouth cliff railway (see AIA conference repoft' page 4) The Tankefton site from the south, showing copperas bed and triangularly-arranged jetty supports. Note sea beyond. photo: M Harrison Photo: T Allen, Canterbury Archaeological Trust 2 INDUSTRIALARiHAEoLoGYNEWS I08 sulphur for early gunpowder production in During the subsequent 20 days of boiling, 1',500 Faversham (c.1 573), ten miles west of Whitstable. lbs of scrap iron and further liquor was added, the lf so, it would probably have been produced via a latter to make up loss by evaporatation. method of dry distillation under heat, discovered When sufficiently concentrated, the liquor was by Christopher Saunders in 1 570. drained into a 'coolel . Two Tankerton coolers The main use of copperas in the early chemical measured 29 feet long by 6 feet 5 inches wide. industry was for the production of sulphuric acid There, the solution was left for about two weeks, and, after 1774, Ior chlorine and chlorine when the copperas began to crystallise on the derivatives, all used in the textile industry. The cooler's inner surface (bundles of twigs were often demand for copperas-derived sulphuric acid grew placed in the coolers to increase the surface area). as the Industrial Revolution increasingly After the remaining solution was channelled into 'galvanised'the economy. As Leibig famously said a second cooler for reprocessing, the crystallised '...we mayfairly judge of the commercial prosperity copperas was collected, re-heated to melting point, of a country from the amount of sulphuric acid it and ooured into moulds to make cakes suitable consumes.' However, in 1825, the price of Sicilian for transport in banels. sulphur was enormously reduced, this favouring Copperas production was a major investment Roebuck's lead-chamber method for sulphuric acid requiring considerable capital outlay for plant and production and dealing a death blow to the already raw materials. Initially, Stevenson probably lacked moribund southern copperas industry. Previously, such capital because, despite receiving the customers had been happy to pay a premium for Whitstable patent in 1565, he only began purer, production there in 1588, presumably using profits the copperas-derived sulphur. Detail of shelving side of copperas bed years, Before the Reformation, the vitriol trade was from the Canford Works. Within 50 another Photo: T Allen, Canterbury Archaeological Trust controlled under Papal monopoly, with the market five works were established in Whitstable. confined by the Apostolic Chamber to Antwerp, The two earliest Whitstable works. which were The second description states: the great textile entrepOt of Northern Europe. situated on the coastal flats, were lost to marine Antwerp, as part of the Spanish Empire, was also encroachment within 50 years. Later works were 'and also without and near adjoining to the said subject to increasing economic control by the built on higher ground on and above the Tankerton Copperas house within the said small Parcell of Spanish Crown, further damaging English trade Slopes overlooking the flats but the ten 'copperas' Land Three Bedds or Pannells made of Gold Stones, interests. In response, a search for a domestic buildings shown cartographically on the Slopes in Sulphur Stones, Marquesette Copperas Stones or supply of copperas was initiated by Henry Vlll, but 1770 had dwindled to one by 1835. Stones whereof Copperas is made...' (1 745) came nothing. Only when nascent The excavation exposed the remains of three this to Other archaeological remains in the form of a nationalism and Reformation weakened the copperas beds conforming in structure with a the rough chalk foundation and cast-iron rods were power Pope and the Spanish Crown was detailed description of 1677. Also exposed were of the consistent with descriptions of early copperas Elizabeth lable to attract'certain foreign chymistes triangularly-arranged timber-posts, probably the works and provided further evidence that they had promising remains of raised jetties built in the face of marine and mineral masters' by lucrative been sited on what is now the Whitstable 'patents'to produce copperas (initial attempts to encroachment and shown on a chart dated 1 725. foreshore. analysis proved these to post-date produce ammonia iron alum in Dorset were soon Stratigraphic In conclusion, it is claimed that the of the beds and to be contemparary with the abandoned in favour of copperas). two documentary and archaeological evidence the above were Cornelius De Vos, third, providing terminus ante quem for lhe Amongst a examined during the above-described project with the beds. The close Cornelius Slevenson and Matthias Falconer, copperas works associated provided the basis for a first, preliminary, from Lidge.