2-889-292 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

One of the Retorts for Burning the Turf into Charcoal, 1850. Drying peat to make charcoal at Derrymullen, Kildare, Ireland. '...in the centre or main building are the furnaces, thirty-six in number, arranged in rows six in each, and are composed of strong sheet-iron, of pyramidal form, with iron framework and hood to protect the upper portion of the building from the flume and vast amount of heat generated from the fiery mass within the furnaces. Here, again, the turf is still further dried upon a framework so arranged over the furnaces and across the building, when it is thrown up from below...by men or women; whilst others turn it about, so that all the heat from below passes through it. By this simple process, and despite the weather, the dampest turf that can be sent into the furnace-house becomes, in the course of six or eight days, ready for the furnaces.' From "Illustrated London News", 1850.