Details

The monument includes the part-excavated, buried remains of a post-
medieval glassworks on the west bank of the River Tame in a field known as
Glass House Fold.
The glassworks was founded by a Huguenot glassmaker named Isaac De Houx in
1612. He married into the local Pilmey family in 1620 and the glassworks
continued in use under the control of the De Houx and Pilmey families
until 1642, when the glassmakers lost their license.
The furnaces were fired by coal, an innovation at this time, and coal was
extracted from a pit 80m to the north of the site. The water required in
the process was from the River Tame which flows past the site on the
eastern side. This glassworks produced high quality clear glass for
windows, also green, blue and opaque black glass vessels. Examples of this
production have been found from excavations in Halton, Chester and
Merseyside.
The site was partially excavated between 1969 and 1973. An area 30m by 15m
was opened, and this revealed the presence of a stone-built glass furnace
with two sieges (benches)and arched flues on the north and south sides
feeding the central hearth area. The whole structure measured about 8m by
4m. Most of this structure was removed with the intention of
reconstructing the furnace on site at a later date. However, this plan has
been abandoned and much of the stonework is now on display in the museum
at Portland Basin in Ashton-under Lyme. A second, stone-built, furnace was
excavated 7m to the south of the main furnace. It was probably made as an
annealing kiln, with three chambers fed by a single flue. The whole
construction measured about 8m by 4m. This was partly consolidated,
conserved in situ, and reburied with the intention of displaying the
remains at a later date. The excavator surmised that there were more
remains of kilns and associated buildings immediately around the excavated
area, and further survey work has presented an inconclusive picture of
possible glassworks and coal extraction remains in the immediate vicinity.
The scheduled area reflects the wider area of such buried remains.
A display board and the surfaces of footpaths are excluded from the
scheduling, although the ground beneath them is included.

MAP EXTRACT
The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract.

Source: Historic England

Reasons for Scheduling

Glass has been produced in England since the Roman period, although field
evidence is scarce until the late medieval period. Wood was the main
manufacturing fuel up to the early 17th century, so the industry was located
in woodland areas, particularly the Weald. From about 1610, production shifted
to the coalfields.
Glass production requires three major components: silica, alkali and lime,
together with colouring material for certain products and decolourisers for
clear glass. Lead was also used in the production of certain types of glass
during the Roman period and after the 17th century. The manufacturing process
involves three stages, fritting, melting and annealing. Fritting was a common
practice before the 19th century involving heating the main glass constituents
to produce an unmolten material for grinding, melting and annealing. Melting
involved the remelting of previously formed glass, and the production of new
glass from raw materials. Until the late 19th century, glass was normally
melted in pre-fired crucibles of refractory clay, on stone benches called
sieges, within the melting furnace. Use of coal as the preferred fuel and
automatic bottle-making machinery in the 1880s led to changes to the melting
furnaces and the use of larger furnaces, hitherto conical structures over
circular furnaces. Regenerative furnaces were developed in the 1860s, and tank
furnaces for bulk melting quickly followed. Flat-glass production methods were
made obsolete by the Pilkington float-glass system of 1959. The third process
is annealing. Because the rapid cooling of molten glass can give rise to
internal stresses, glass was treated in furnaces designed to heat the glass to
a point where deformation begins, then cooled gradually. In the 19th century
conveyors were introduced to take glass through a hot zone into cool air.
Features on glass manufacturing sites include various types of furnaces,
producer-gas plants for the making of gas from coke at 19th century
glassworks, bottle-making machinery, blowing irons or pipes for blowing glass,
glass residues and various buildings used as stores or warehouses. A total of
135 glass production sites (representing about 25% of the estimated national
archaeological resource for the industry) have been identified as being of
national importance. This selection, compiled and assessed though a
comprehensive national survey of the glass industry, is designed to represent
the industry's chronological depth, technological breadth and regional
diversity, and to include all the better preserved glass sites, together with
rare individual component features.

The post-medieval glassworks 250m south east of Clarke's Bridge represent
a well-documented, well-recorded example of this type of monument,
together with the probable remains of further buried features in the
immediate vicinity. The works were one of the first to have been fired by
coal, and remains of the coal extraction pits may lie close to the site,
although later mining has obscured the location and nature of these
remains. Overall, the site has high importance as a representative of
experimentation in the early post-medieval industry and of the early
industry in Lancashire. The remains lie in a riverside park, administered
by the local authority, and have been marked by display boards and
explanatory leaflets. Consequently, the site has a high public profile and
a value as an educational and recreational amenity for the Tameside
community.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Books and journals
Hurst-Vose, R, 17th Century Glasshouse at Haughton Green, (1996)
Other

Portland Basin Museum, (2001)

Source: Historic England