Charging Barrow Wheel

This wheel was found when workers excavated the filled-in bed of the Gartsherrie Branch of the Monkland Canal between Gartsherrie Road and the railway line in 2011.

The wheel matches those found on 'charging barrows', the large wheelbarrows used to tip raw materials into the tops of blast furnaces. This was an arduous and dangerous job because of the weight of the ironstone and coal and because of the poisonous fumes given off by the furnace.

It may be that the wheel was used at the Gartsherrie Iron Works and subsequently dumped into the derelict canal during the rebuilding of the ironworks in the 1950s.