Name: Redcar blast furnace - spectacular footage before and after iconic landmark's demolition
Uploaded: 2022-11-23T11:29:50.000Z
Duration: 90 s
Description: Redcar blast furnace - spectacular footage before and after iconic landmark's demolition

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A loud bang rang out across Hartlepool as the town’s skyline was changed forever following the demolition of Redcar’s Blast Furnace.

Scores of people turned out at Seaton Carew to watch the 9am Wednesday demolition from across the Tees Bay.

The explosion could be heard at Seaton, three miles away in Hartlepool town centre and as far away as Blackhall.

The 365ft-high blast furnace had been a dominant fixture of the Hartlepool horizon since it was commissioned in 1979.

The demolition of the Redcar Blast Furnace as viewed from Seaton Carew. Picture by FRANK REID.

Its flattening is paving the way for a new £1.5 billion bp-led Net Zero Teesside project.

Among those at Seaton Carew to watch the demolition was Derek Hedley, 60, from the Owton Manor area of town.

He said: “I’ve come down to see this iconic steelworks get demolished. We will get a new skyline with new buildings sprouting up for the local community and maybe people from Hartlepool will have jobs there.”Despite the site’s history and Derek previously working at the former BOS plant on the site, he was not sad to see it go.

He added: “It did provide jobs for a lot of years, but things move on. It’s a good thing I think.”

The blast furnace is demolished on Wednesday morning.

Seaton Carew resident Adrian Barron, 80, said: “I came to see how big a bang it was going to be. I saw the dynamite go off then about ten seconds later there was a bang.

"It will be strange looking over there and not seeing it.”

11 pictures of Redcar Blast Furnace demolition as seen from Hartlepool

Patrycja Kalwarska, 42, from the Church Street area, also went with her mother Wioletta and son Maksym and were armed with binoculars and their camera phones.

The first view of Redcar from Seaton Carew following the blast furnace's demolition.

“We decided to come and see it for the last time,” said Patrycja. "I only heard about it this morning.

“We have walks here frequently. I don’t have any particular feelings about it, it is just an interesting thing.

"It is a shame it’s gone. The landscape will change.

"It has been a familiar thing since I’ve lived in Hartlepool for the last five years.”

The Redcar Blast Furnace ahead of Wednesday's demolition.

Demolition teams used 175kg of explosives to bring down the casting houses, dust catcher, charge conveyors, and the blast furnace in a mater of seconds leaving just a loud cloud of dust.

The four stoves which heated the blast furnace will be brought down in a separate demolition in the coming month.

Watch as Redcar Blast Furnace is removed from Hartlepool skyline by controlled explosion