Govăjdia Blast Furnace

The Govăjdia Blast Furnace is a disused blast furnace in Govăjdia village, Ghelari Commune, Hunedoara County, in the Transylvania region of Romania. An earlier blast furnace had been set up at Toplița in 1781, but the quantity of raw materials it prepared for workshops involved in cast iron refining proved inadequate. Thus, the Thesaurariat at Sibiu, which represented the Imperial Austrian authorities, coordinated mining activities in Transylvania and had an office based in the Corvin Castle, decided in 1802 to build a second furnace in the Hunedoara area. The site chosen was at the confluence of two rivers close to a group of forge works and iron mines. Construction began in 1806, and although finished in 1810, production only began in April 1813, once the necessary annexes had been built. A tablet placed on the front of the furnace read: Augusto Imperante Francisco Extructum 1810 ("Built 1810 during the reign of the venerable Francis"). Its dimensions were: total height 8.5 m; hearth diameter at bottom 1.10 m; maximum bosh diameter 1.14 m; throat diameter 1.05 m; bosh height at lower line 3.15 m; working volume 2,002 m3. The furnace's first period of use was fairly short at seven and a half months, as the crucible had become quite worn and enough cast iron had been generated to last the nearby workshops three years.