A water wheel driven by the river powered the machinery, line shafts and furnace blasts.
Part of the works where spade making was carried out had Naysmyth steam hammers and a rolling mill.
Also for lease was the firebrick and tile works which used fire clay from a nearby pit and had a kiln, drying sheds and a steam powered grinding wheels.
[1] Lancashire's first three steam locomotives were built here in 1812, 1815 and 1816 for John Clarke's Winstanley Colliery Railway at Orrell.
Four more 4-4-0STs for the South Devon Railway were built to a design by Daniel Gooch in the 1850s (Damon, Falcon, Orion and Priam).
In 1855 two 0-8-0 locomotives for use in the Crimean War, capable of hauling guns up inclines as steep as 1 in 10, were reputed to have been built with horizontal cylindrical furnaces, rather than rectangular fireboxes, and boilers fed by force pumps.
[4] [5] In 1849 the company delivered about 1000 yards of 40 inch cast-iron water pipes for the Manchester Corporation Waterworks Scheme in the Longdendale Chain.
[6] The new leasees, Birley & Thompson, concentrated on heavy engineering but made at least two locomotives and quoted unsuccessfully for the Festiniog Railway's 'Prince' class.