The art of turning iron ore into steel have undergone a long technological evolution over a very long period, but the real advances started to come as the hunger for steel during the industrial revolution increased. The schoolbook way of steelmaking describes two steps where the first one turns the ore into iron and the second turns the crude iron into steel with the desired properties.

High quality steel has for long periods been a trademark of Sweden, where the combination of decent domestic supplies with very pure ores and vast forests capable of yielding charcoal, which as such is very pure and is virtually free from sulphur and other inpurities. Where the competition had to deal with phosphorus rich ores and mined coal, rich in sulphur, Sweden had a very favorable position for producing the finest steel possible.

Lancashire forge was introduced in Sweden around 1830 and quickly became widespread as it fitted the industrial structure here well. Earlier forge processes, such as the Wallonian- and German methods were also widespread, which made the transition easier. The process is very fuel- and labor intensive, where small lumps of 100 kgs are processed batch-wise. When the Bessemer process was spread around 1870 and the Thomas- and Siemens-Martin processes matured over the coming twenty year period, suddenly steel could be produced in large volumes. However, for the finest steel qualities, the Lancashire process still held. Even in the 1930s, it was said that nothing can beat it and although very expensive by nature, "it will be around forever".

With the rapid development of electric furnaces and the direct oxygen processes in the post-WWII era, the importance of the Lancashire process quickly fell and around 1960, almost all forges were gone. The last one in the world was Swedish and it closed as late as 1964.

Walking around in the shadows of these silent premises is fantastic. All equipment, all spider's webs, all dust seems to be exactly in the state it was more than forty years ago.
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