Four Queens

Victoria, Anne, Bess and Mary.
Further viewing at Stahlseite.
Tata Steel’s integrated steel plant in Scunthorpe, GB was founded in 1864 under the name Frodingham Iron Works.
Iron was produced from local iron ore deposits since 1865. A Thomas converter steel making shop started it’s production in 1890.
In 1912 Frodingham took over the nearby Appleby Iron Co. (founded in 1874) to form the Appleby Frodingham Steel Co.
This enterprise became part of the United Steel Companies in 1937. In 1939 two new large volume blast furnaces were installed (Mary & Bess). In 1954 Anne and Victoria were added to complete the “Four Queens”.

In 1967 the United Steel Companies became part of the newly founded British Steel Corporation.
The Anchor project (1969-1973), one of the largest investments into the British steel industry ever, brought a new BOF shop, new rolling mills and the Immingham iron ore terminal by the Humber river.
British Steel merged with Koninklijke Hoogovens from the Netherlands to form Corus in 1999. Eigth years later Corus was taken over by the Tata Steel group from India.
Tata Scunthorpe today consists of 4 blast furnaces (three active) a BOF shop containing three 300 ton vessels, a slab caster, a bloom caster and three rolling mills (rails, heavy plate and wire).