Beehive Coke Ovens on The Naze

Up on the west side of the Broadhead valley there is a field containing two groups of “beehive” coke ovens, a small group and a larger “battery”. The battery of coke ovens is a bit strange as the ovens are in two, facing rows. It is more common for the rows to be built back-to-back as more heat can be conserved, but for some reason, not here.

Beehive coke ovens are traditional in the West Pennine Moors area and can be constructed fairly easily from the local stone. Built in the shape of a beehive (a natural one, not a modern beekeepers box), with a hole at the top and another in the side for feeding the fire. Usually in the form of back-to-back rows the ovens of one row could be allowed to cool enough to remove the coke, without cooling down fully as the other row was being fired. It takes many hours for the ovens to heat from cold to operating temperature.

The ovens were fired through an opening in the side, at the bottom. Then coal was added through the hole in the top and the holes blocked. I’m don’t know much about coal based technology but I believe the process burned off impurities in the coal to produce a purer form of coal that was called “coke”. I read somewhere that the areas surrounding coke ovens where filled with black smoke, lit with an eerie red glow from the fires. The “impurities” being burned off were terrible pollutants and the moorland plants died off all around. Sounds a bit Saruman doesn’t it? It’s hard to imagine today, with panoramic views over the countryside and plenty of wildlife around.

I’ve only visited here a couple of times, the first with JRL years ago when we also came across the tunnels in Round Barn quarry. When I returned years later I was expecting many rows of ovens, such was the scene in my memory, but there’s only a couple in the small group and possibly eight in the battery, not all standing. I had to go and check the old maps to see where the rest had gone, but it turned out they never were.

It’s an excellent place to visit though, the valley is beautiful and there’s plenty of other industrial archaeology around from the old moss, quarries with tunnels and old coal mining remains and great views over the Wayoh reservoir and beyond.

I’m not sure when the coke ovens where constructed, on the first edition OS map there is a coal shaft from the nearby Broadhead Colliery on the site of the battery of coke ovens, but by the time of the 1894 map the site shows the ovens with no text. By 1910 the ovens are shown with the text “old coke ovens”. Incidentally the small group of coke ovens is on the site of the old colliery itself. I might posit that the oven themselves are constructed from the stone of the old colliery and its associated workings. Strange though, starting manufacturing coke after the source of coal has gone. Can you make coke from the low quality coal the colliery left behind?

The larger battery of beehive coke ovens is probably the most interesting but beware - there was a stinky dead sheep in one when I last visited. Due to ruinous state of the coke ovens, it’s possible to see the way they were constructed, it’s like a coke oven teardown with examples of each stage.

I don’t know about coke oven pollution but I read that in some other areas the poisoned ground weathers to produce calcium carbonate which creates a new environment, suitable for a variety of plants.

Created: 12  November  2021  Edited: 29  November  2023