Frodingham Ironstone Mines

Overview

The reason Scunthorpe exists. A low-grade Jurassic ironstone lying almost at the surface was rediscovered in 1859, stripped by the million tons from open quarries, followed underground when the cover got too thick — and abandoned in 1981 once better ore could be landed at Immingham.

History

Romano-British workings had found this ore long before, but the modern industry begins with its rediscovery in 1858-9 and with Rowland Winn of Appleby and Nostell Priory, who opened out the mines in 1859 and pushed hard to get ironmaking established locally rather than simply shipping the ore away. The first blast furnace, begun by the Dawes in 1862, was in blast by 1864 as the Trent Iron Company; the Frodingham Iron Company followed the same year under Joseph Cliff, a firebrick manufacturer from Leeds. Output reached 248,329 tons in 1875. The Appleby and Frodingham iron companies merged in 1912 and were formally amalgamated as the Appleby-Frodingham Steel Company in 1934 under United Steel; the mines themselves became Frodingham Ironstone Mines Ltd, formed on 1 July 1918. Local ore output peaked at 4.7 million tons a year in 1967.

Geology

The Frodingham Ironstone belongs to the Lower Lias, at the base of the Jurassic — a calcareous hydrated iron oxide carrying oolitic nodules and averaging about 25 per cent iron, ranging locally from 12 to 40. That is poor ore by any international standard, and the industry existed only because it lay shallow, in bulk, beside a river and eventually a railway. The bed forms a north-south lens running from the Humber, deepening around Appleby and reaching its greatest thickness near Santon at about thirty-two feet before thinning to thirteen feet north of West Halton. It is worth distinguishing from Britain's other Jurassic ironstones: this is Lower Lias, older than the Northampton Sand Ironstone of the East Midlands and different again from the Cleveland Ironstone worked at Rosedale.

Geological setting: Sedimentary Beds and Seams (well documented example)

Workings

For the first eighty years the ore was almost all taken from open workings east of Scunthorpe, following the outcrop where the cover was thin — the East Common outcrop ore is what the town's development actually depended on. A short branch to further deposits near Santon was authorised and opened in 1872-3. Underground working came late: the first mine, appropriately named Winn's Ironstone Mine, is recorded as starting in 1938, and after the Second World War the Santon drift mine and Dragonby mine worked the bed by room-and-pillar where the overburden had grown too deep to strip.

Closure

Local ore fell from its 1967 peak of 4.7 million tons to around a million by the 1980s, and underground working ceased in 1981. The cause was not exhaustion but competition: from about 1970-72 the Immingham Bulk Terminal allowed richer imported ore to be landed cheaply, and a 25 per cent Jurassic ironstone could not compete with it even on its own doorstep.

What remains

The quarries and mines have gone back to farmland, scrub and industrial ground, and are not accessible. The steelworks they were dug to feed is still there.

Little that reads as mining. The landscape east of Scunthorpe carries the earthwork traces of worked-out quarry ground, and the village of Dragonby takes its name from the escarpment the ore was taken from.

Redevelopment

Absorbed into the farmland and industrial fringe of Scunthorpe, a town that would not exist in its present form without the bed beneath it.

Abandoned workings can be dangerous — unstable ground, uncapped shafts, flooding and bad air are common even where a site looks safe from the surface. This entry describes history and general location only; it is not an access guide.

Recorded claims

Individual factual claims, each attached to the source(s) that support it below. Where sources disagree, both are kept.

• The Frodingham ironstone field was rediscovered in 1858-9, on ground that had carried Romano-British workings, and Rowland Winn opened out the mines in 1859. ^1,2
• The Frodingham Ironstone is a Lower Lias bed of calcareous hydrated iron oxide with oolitic nodules, averaging about 25 per cent iron and ranging locally from 12 to 40 per cent. ¹
• The bed is a north-south lens running from the Humber, deepening around Appleby, thickest near Santon at about 32 ft and thinning to 13 ft north of West Halton. ¹
• Iron ore production reached 248,329 tons in 1875. ¹
• The Frodingham Iron Company was established in 1864 by Joseph Cliff; it merged with the Appleby Iron Company in 1912, and the two were formally amalgamated as the Appleby-Frodingham Steel Company in 1934 under United Steel Companies. ¹
• Frodingham Ironstone Mines Ltd was formed on 1 July 1918. ²
• Extraction was almost entirely from open workings until underground mining began, with Winn's Ironstone Mine recorded from 1938 and the Santon drift and Dragonby mines working by room-and-pillar after the Second World War. ¹
• Local ore output peaked at 4.7 million tons a year in 1967, falling to about a million tons by the 1980s, with underground working ceasing in 1981. ¹
• Local ironstone was displaced by richer imported ore landed at the Immingham Bulk Terminal from about 1970-72. ¹

Photographs & further reading

This page doesn't try to reproduce everything — these are the best original sources found for this mine.

Sources

1. (secondary) Appleby-Frodingham Steel Company / Scunthorpe Steelworks — Wikipedia
2. (secondary) Frodingham Ironstone Mines — Grace's Guide
3. (primary) Frodingham Ironstone Mines Ltd., Appleby Iron Co Ltd — records — The National Archives
4. (primary) Mineral plan KP7549: contours on top of the Frodingham Ironstone bed — British Geological Survey / Mining Remediation Authority mine plans catalogue

Record created: 24 August 2026 · Last researched: 24 August 2026