A Short history of Priorslee Rolling Mill, by Ernie Wood

When I started work in 1935 at Priors Lee steel works, there was a coal distillation plant which was virtually intact except for one or two minor pieces of machinery. This plant had been built in 1913 by Anglo German firm which had premises in Hamburg in Middlesbrough. This plant produced, amongst other things, Coke Sulphates and Benzol, which was sold to local motorists from a pump opposite Priors Lee churchyard. The chimney stack was the highest in Shropshire. It was taken down by hand (not blasted) in 1942 because it was considered dangerous should be plant be bombed. The coal washing plant was still working, washing coal for power stations.

There were three blast furnaces, one was in blast, and six Cowper heating stoves each over 75 ft high. There was a 20 inch steel rolling mill working 24 hours a day. They were three different types of Blowing Engines, you could say four because the Beam Engine could be split and one-half the be repaired when the other half was working. There was also a large horizontal blowing engine called the Bessemer Engine, but alas no Bessemers. I did eventually find out what had happened to the Bessemer furnaces. Steel had been made at Priors Lee long before 1900. Steam cranes capable of lifting 20 tons we used to pour molten pig iron into the Bessemer furnaces. During the first World War, the government took control of the Bessemer plant. They installed two steam turbine generators and two overhead electric cranes, a large horizontal metal mixer was built with a gas producer to heat it. This plant, which start work in 1917, was as modern as was possible at that time.

All went well until War ended and the demand for steel fell. There were many identical plants in the UK which have been built with government aid and they were producing steel very cheaply. This did not please the Iron and Steel Federation who owned all the large steel works. They offer to pay these small plants to destroy their Bessemers and promised to supply steel ingots for the rolling mill at a very low price.

The Lilleshall Company accepted the compensation and destroyed their Bessemers. Not far from the rolling mill was a building devoid of any machinery and always referred to by older employees as Albert's Basic Slag Works. It had been built in 1908 by a Belgian firm called Albert and it was where the Basic Slag was crushed to make fertiliser. This building was used in the Second World War to make bullet proof rivets, small forgings and aircraft parts. It went by the name BPR.

I was never able to find out how many small steel makers destroyed their Bessemers, but I did find out that one firm in the Potteries area refused to destroy their Bessemers and found that their customers were being supplied with steel at very low prices. This firm went bankrupt and within one year the plant was demolished. I think the coal distillation plant closed in 1926, the blast furnaces closed at Easter 1959, and the steel mill closed November 1982.