Iron railing
{{Short description|Fence made of iron}}
File:EH1194622 Railings to Churchyard of Cathedral Church of St Paul 04.jpg railings at St Paul's Cathedral, London.]]
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File:Phantom Railings of Malet Street Gardens.JPG.]]
An iron railing is a fence made of iron. This may either be wrought iron, which is ductile and durable and may be hammered into elaborate shapes when hot, or the cheaper cast iron, which is of low ductility and quite brittle. Cast iron can also produce complicated shapes, but these are created through the use of moulds of compressed sand rather than hammering, which would be likely to damage the iron.Fleming, John & Hugh Honour. (1977) The Penguin Dictionary of Decorative Arts. London: Allen Lane, pp. 398–399. {{ISBN|0713909412}}
History
One of the earliest uses of cast iron railings in England was in 1710–14 at St Paul's Cathedral, despite the objections of Christopher Wren, who did not want a fence around the Cathedral at all, and said that if there had to be one it should be of wrought rather than cast iron.[https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O373752/railings-lamberhurst-foundry/ Railings M.209:1–1976], Victoria & Albert Museum, 2013. Retrieved 31 October 2013. The set was made at Gloucester Furnace, Lamberhurst,{{cite book |first=J. S. |last=Hodgkinson |title=The Wealden Iron Industry |page=124 |publisher=The History Press |location=Stroud |year=2008}} in the Weald of Kent and surrounded the cathedral, including seven gates. It weighed two hundred tons and cost six pence a pound. The total cost was £11,202 which was a fortune then. No further railings are known to have been cast in the Weald.{{citation |chapter=Cast Iron: history |title=Metal Crafts in Architecture |page=101 |author=Gerald Kenneth Geerlings |author-link=Gerald K. Geerlings|publisher=I.B. Tauris |year=1957}} Other early uses of cast iron railings were at Cambridge Senate House and at St Martin-in-the-Fields, London.
Wrought iron may be used to construct ornate railings. The Davies brothers of Wrexham made such railings in the 18th century and these are much admired — Nikolaus Pevsner described their work as "miraculous".{{citation |author=N. Pevsner, I. Nairn |title=Buildings of England |volume=21 Surrey |publisher=Penguin Books |year=1962 |page=363}} They made fine wrought iron railings for Stansty Park and these may now be seen at Erddig Hall.{{citation |page=113 |chapter=The Welsh Smiths |year=1929 |title=Wrought Iron and Its Decorative Use |author=Maxwell Ayrton, Arnold Silcock |publisher=Courier Dover Publications |isbn=9780486423265}}
During the summer of 1941, during World War II, the United States stopped exporting scrap metal to the UK.{{cite web | url=https://www.filey.co.uk/lost-railings-crescent | title=The Lost Railings of the Crescent | date=23 April 2020 }}{{cite web | url=https://www.londongardenstrust.org/features/railings3.htm#:~:text=Long%20wrote%20%22I%20believe%20that,ironwork%20into%20weapons%20of%20war.%22 | title=So What Really Happened to our Railings? }} The government declared, in response, that all unnecessary metal, including railings and gates, was to be removed, melted down and utilised for the war effort. Many sets of iron railings in Britain were removed. Railings were usually cut off at the base; the stubs may still be seen outside many buildings in London and elsewhere where they have never been replaced. This was supposedly to provide scrap metal for munitions, but there is some scepticism as to whether they were actually used for this purpose.{{citation |url=http://greatwen.com/2012/04/17/secret-london-the-mystery-of-londons-world-war-ii-railings/ |work=The Great Wen |title=Secret London: the mystery of London's World War II railings |author=Peter Watts |date=17 April 2012}}
In 2012 artist Catalina Pollak created an interactive sound installation called Phantom Railings in Malet Street Gardens, London, the site of railings that were removed during World War II. Acoustic sensors pick up the movement of pedestrians walking by and translate it into "the familiar sound produced by running a stick along an iron fence".{{citation |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-19916493 |title=Chilean artist resurrects 'phantom railings' in London |date=11 October 2012 |publisher=BBC |author=Roopa Suchak}}{{citation |url=http://publicinterventions.org/ |work=Public Interventions |title=Phantom Railings |access-date=19 October 2012}}
Cheshire
In the county of Cheshire, hedging at road junctions and corners which could restrict visibility of approaching vehicles was replaced by black-and-white railings with a distinctive curved top. They are now characteristic of the area and are being restored where they have become dilapidated.{{citation |title=Walking Cheshire's Sandstone Trail |author=Tony Bowerman |isbn=9780955355714 |page=123 |year=2012|publisher=Northern Eye Books Limited }}
United States
Stewart Iron Works in Covington, Kentucky was once the largest wrought iron fence manufacturer in the world.{{cite book|title=Sweet's catalogue of building construction|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-X9NAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA498|access-date=6 September 2012|edition=Public domain|year=1913|publisher=Sweet's Catalogue Service, Inc.|pages=498–}}{{cite book|title=Cincinnati Magazine|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aesCAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA60|access-date=6 September 2012|date=July 1991|publisher=Emmis Communications|page=60|issn=0746-8210}} The factory supplied the decorative fences for the Panama Canal, the British Embassy in Washington, D.C., the Taft Museum,{{cite book|title=Cincinnati Magazine|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S-sCAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA135|access-date=8 September 2012|date=April 2003|publisher=Emmis Communications|pages=135–|issn=0746-8210}} as well as the entrance gates to the White House, the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center, and the U.S. House of Representatives and others.
==Gallery==
File:Casa Juncadella - escala.jpg|Casa Juncadella, Barcelona
File:Charleston Ironwork.jpg|Charleston, South Carolina
File:Forest_Gate_Lane_-_geograph.org.uk_-_289802.jpg|Cheshire railings
File:Penarth Pier - detail of railings.jpg|Penarth Pier
File:Cast Iron railings in the V & A given by St. Paul's Cathedral M.209-1-1976.jpg|Railings from St. Paul's Cathedral in the Victoria & Albert Museum