“A celebration of fire and smoke” at Acton Scott

Acton Scott Historic Working Farm will be host to a four day and night extravaganza of ‘fire and smoke’ in the run up to Easter.

From Tuesday 19 April to Friday 22 April 2011 officers from Shropshire Council’s Historic Environment team will be firing the Victorian brick kiln, which was seen on BBC2’s Victorian Farm Christmas Special.

Colin Richards, historic environment manager with Shropshire Council, said:

“The kiln holds over 5,000 handmade bricks and will take over four days and nights to fire using a combination of coal and wood as fuel.  Additionally, the team will be constructing and firing a 4-tonne earthen charcoal clamp over the four days.  Using this traditional method from the Wyre Forest we hope to produce 500 kilos of quality charcoal that will be used to smelt iron in a pre-historic shaft furnace during the event.

“The iron from this will be taken to the 8th Iron Smelting Symposium at Villeneuve d’Ascq near Lille in France later this year, where we hope to repeat our success of last year.”

Officers from Shropshire Council’s Historic Environment Team who participated in the recently screened Edwardian Farm (BBC 2) and Rome wasn’t built in a day (Channel 4) television programmes, will be on hand during normal museum opening hours over the four days leading up to the Easter weekend to answer questions on the firing and smelting techniques.

For more information, call Acton Scott Historic Working Farm on 01694 781540.