Eagle Ironworks, Oxford

The Eagle Ironworks was an ironworks owned by W. Lucy & Co. on the Oxford Canal in Jericho, Oxford, England. William Carter founded the works in 1812 with a shop in the High Street and moved it to its site beside the canal in 1825. It was on Walton Well Road at the northern end of Walton Street and backed onto St Sepulchre's Cemetery. The works ceased production in 2005, was demolished in 2007 and has since been redeveloped, mainly with apartments.

History

William Carter had an ironmongery shop in High Street, Oxford by 1812, when he founded an iron foundry in Summertown which was then a rural location north of Oxford. He moved the foundry to the banks of the Oxford Canal in 1825, one of the first developments in what is now the district of Jericho in central Oxford. The company specialized in iron castings including lamp-posts, manhole covers, ornamental ironwork and agricultural machinery. William Grafton became a partner and in 1830 Carter moved to the Eagle Foundry in Leamington Hastings, Warwickshire. Grafton continued to manage the foundry in Oxford, which became called the Eagle Ironworks. In 1854 the company bought the freehold for the site from St John's College, which owned much of north Oxford. When Grafton died in 1861, William Lucy, his partner, took over the running of the foundry. When he in turn died in 1873, the name of the ironworks became "Lucy's".