Wrought iron has produced some of the most beautiful architectural classic pieces around… from tiny escutcheons to the gorgeous Medusa head knocker, wrought iron has a specific look and feel that modern metal does not reproduce.

Wrought iron is made by a very specific process. Nowadays, what we call wrought iron is technically worked mild steel. The wrought iron is produced by such a different process that it warranted a second name … although the term ‘wrought’ simply means ‘worked’, and so could apply to nearly any iron product. The process by which wrought iron is currently made is as follows:

 

• Refining
• Puddling
• Shingling, and
• Rolling

Refining is basically removing impurities via heat and quick cooling. Puddling involves further heating the iron in a different furnace to remove even more impurities and form iron balls. In shingling, the red hot iron is pressed either by a hammer or by a squeezing machine (remember your cartoons, where the good guys would be suspensefully trapped inside a box with two walls coming towards them?! Just like that). Rolling is a similar process – the grooved rollers produce thin bars of iron which can be hammered together (a process known as faggoting – but that’s enough giggling!), then heated and rolled again until the desired amount of impurities are removed – usually over 99%.

This is in contrast to the older process for making wrought iron, which basically involved using charcoal mixed with the iron ore, to create a fire hot enough to start melting the metal. A bellows or tuyere added the extra required heat to melt the impurities so they could run out first. Carbon monoxide from the burning charcoal chemically assisted the metamorphosis of the ore into iron, which remained solid. This is like the refining process today. When the iron was cooler, it was worked basically using a hammer, a lot of brawn and a little brain to shape it into the beautiful ancient shapes that we can see in museums and elsewhere!

So with the older process, by which not so many impurities are removed, the process forms impurities (or slag) into strands, which create a texture like the grain of wood or paper in the metal. This makes wrought iron strong when struck from one direction, but weak from the perpendicular direction. It also makes working true wrought iron a skilled and artistic process!

It is a difficult job – back in the Middle Ages, it required not only the secret knowledge of how to work metal, but a whole heap of muscle (think how many times in a day you would have to swing a hammer with all your force to work a piece of hot metal!). The other important ingredient was sheer guts – in the days before enclosed chambers and heat-resistant high tensile tools for doing this work, and definitely no OH&S rules, blacksmithing was a very dangerous occupation. Perhaps this is the reason why a rich mythological history sprang up surrounding those who were able to work iron into wrought iron.

Blacksmithing was seen as somewhat akin to alchemy in the early years since it was discovered how to actually work iron. In Greek mythology Hephaestus was a blacksmith, as was Vulcan in Roman mythology. The blacksmith made a solid into a liquid, and changed the shape of something that you break your bones on a thousand times before you made an impression on it! It also needed a little bit of luck, magic and help from the gods, because with the grain of iron, and how difficult it could be to work (like we said, without all the modern conveniences), it could be brittle and sometimes snap. If this happened while you were in battle, with thousands of other bits of iron whistling around you, obviously the gods did not favour you … or your blacksmith! In fact, it was seen as such an otherworldly concept, that plenty of towns during the Middle Ages (albeit at the height of ‘witch-fever’) prohibited the ‘enchanting and satanic’ art from being taught and performed – death was the penalty!

It was when the Northern Italians invaded and overtook Rome that the skill to work iron ornamentally, and the time and energy resources to do so finally came together. In time, monasteries evolved as the place to work iron, and Winchester Cathedral (England) and Notre Dame (Paris) were the first cathedrals to prominently feature wrought iron decorations.

Wrought iron still has a gorgeous, somewhat natural feel and look to it, and looking at the older pieces, you can’t help but agree with people long-gone that it did take a bit of magic to make such intricate pieces with fire, water and brute strength.

Photo credits: Forge by Ennor, The Armourer by Johny Day

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