That production of iron had begun in Dale before the end of the 18th century is attested in Pilkington’s book dated 1789. He describes the burden of the furnace as consisting of nine baskets of ore, four of coke and two of limestone for the making of shot and ballast, seven baskets of ironstone, four of coke and two of limestone for the making of forge metal, and five and a half baskets of ore, four of coke and one and a half of limestone for the making of soft metal for castings.  

The ironstone derived from bellpits and open holes on Dale Moor (the remains of which can still be seen). The Lower Coal measures, which were 1000 feet thick, outcropped between Stanton Gate and Dale, and also supplied coal and iron ore; coal was originally obtained by footrills, then later opencast. The chief coal seam was of Kilburn coal, a seam of which outcrops by the Carpenters’ Arms in Dale, and the iron ores were known as Dale Moor rake, Civilly rake and Honeycroft rake – layers or courses of rounded and flat cakes of ironstone, embedded in shale; these cakes frequently enclosed ferns, cones or shell fish round which the mineral substance had accumulated. The ironstone had to be picked out by hand from the shale. The northern half of Stanton estate is built on millstone grit; this was known as Farewell Rock because it’s goodbye to coal when a miner strikes it.  

Some coal came also from Shipley Colliery down the Nutbrook Canal, which was completed in 1796; some was made into coke by covering it with earth and lighting it. Limestone came from Cromford by canal (the Cromford Canal was opened in 1794), and pig iron was disposed of by canal.

The original iron furnace at Dale preceded the construction of furnaces on the Old Works site at Stanton in 1842 (27th April 1846, by Benjamin Smith, according to some sources). It was probably 30 feet high with not more than a three foot diameter hearth, blown by four tuyeres. There was no water power at Dale. A blast engine of atmospheric type working on to leather bellows fed the furnace. There seems to have been ‘a considerable interval’ between the blowing out of furnaces at Dale and the commencement of furnaces on the present Old Works site.  

Those later furnaces, three small blast furnaces managed by Josiah Smith, Benjamin’s son, were tapped once in 18 hours, though sometimes twice in 24 hours. The cast consisted of one or two tons of iron, and each furnace made 18 to 20 tons of pig iron a day. This was transported by the Erewash Canal, which had been completed in 1779. It is said that the Grove farmhouse was built in 1846 for the manager of the Stanton Iron Company.