For decades, Lanarkshire was the industrial heart of Scotland - one of the strongest links in the chain across the central belt that linked together Scotland’s economy in the 20th century.
Today we wanted to look back at the days of industry in North Lanarkshire by putting a spotlight on the heritage of the Ravenscraig. Located between Motherwell, Carfin, and Wishaw, it was one of the largest steel works in Western Europe, and in its day, ‘Lanarkshire Steel’ was a sure ear-mark of quality.
Commissioned by the Colville’s of the Clyde Iron Works back in the early 1950’s at a cost of £22.5 million, the Ravenscraig took three years to build. Spanning one square mile, the site consisted of coke ovens, a by-products plant, one blast furnace and an open hearth melting shop with three steel-making furnaces. The semi-continuous strip mill would be introduced in future expansion works completed in 1962.
The coke ovens were lit for the first time on June, 3, 1957, and the blast furnace on August 1 the same year (after some preliminary heating), followed by the melting shop on 3 September later that year. Production quickly began on 400,000 tonnes of steel per year - and this wasn’t your granny’s steel, this was top of the line stuff.
At its peak Ravenscraig employed around 7,000 workers and would find its way into the manufacture of thousands of different items over the decades - heavy steel products such as trains, ships and bridges and things made of sheet steel like office equipment, vehicles and household goods across the world.
The majority of the steel produced at Ravenscraig was dispatched generally into other steel finishing plants such as Gartcosh (cold-finish) Strip Mill or Dalzell Plate Mill.
Some of Ravenscraig’s biggest customers were the British Motor Corporation, Rootes Group (later Chrysler), Ford, Rover, Volvo, Carron Steelyne (who produced post boxes and navy cannons), J. G. Carrick & Co Ltd, and Stelrad.
The brownfield site lay derelict for three decades - save for the construction of the Ravenscraig Sports Centre in 2010, which served as an island in the industrial wasteland prior to the new-build housing construction in recent years - with developers set on creating a whole new town on the site of the former Steelworks.
Take a look below as we explore the history of the Ravenscraig Steelworks in 12 pictures.
5. Lanarkshire steelmen (1912)
The Motherwell steelmen of Lanarkshire Steel Works 36” Mill - the steelworks in Motherwell were the industrial heart of the town, later when Ravenscraig was fully established it was the largest hot steel mill in Western Europe. Most of the Steel produced was transported to Glasgow for the shipbuilding industry - it was the quality and quantity of steel made here by the steelmen of Motherwell that made Glasgow’s ship industry possible. | CultureNL
6. Strip Mill
Lengths of steel pass through the rougher at the Strip Mill | CultureNL
7. The Ravenscraig Steelworks prior to its closure in 1992.
The Ravenscraig Steelworks prior to its closure in 1992. | Creative Commons
8. Ravenscraig Coke Ovens
When first built, Ravenscraig had 70 Becker-type combination gas-gun coke ovens built across two batteries of 35 ovens each. They were fired with either reclaimed blast furnace or coke oven gas and were designed with ventilated foundations to reduce drying-out of the clay beds. Most of the coal came from West Lothian in the beginning, but from 1979 onwards, Hunterston Coal and Ore Terminal also supplied Ravenscraig with two trainloads of coal carrying 2,500 tons a day. | RCAHMS