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Winlaton is a village situated in the Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead in Tyne and Wear, England. Once an independent village in County Durham, it became incorporated into the metropolitan county of Tyne and Wear and Borough of Gateshead in 1974. By 2011 the village had been absorbed into the Gateshead MBC ward of Winlaton and High Spen. The population of this ward at the 2011 census was 8,342. Winlaton was once at the centre of the local steel industry. Ambrose Crowley, a Quaker nail-manufacturer, moved to Winlaton in 1691. He set up furnaces and forges there and on the River Derwent at Winlaton Mill. The river was ideally suitable for tempering steel, as the sword-makers of Shotley Bridge also found. Crowley not only produced high-quality nails, but also iron goods such as pots, hinges, wheel-hubs, hatchets and edged tools. He could also make heavy forgings, such as chains, pumps, cannon carriages and anchors up to four tons in weight. The Crowley works were regarded as the largest manufactory of the kind in Europe. The gates for Buckingham Palace were also forged in Winlaton. The village still has one of the oldest forges remaining in existence, built circa 1690. Winlaton was originally a township in the ancient parish of Ryton in County Durham. It became a separate civil parish in 1866 at which time the village of Chopwell within the former township also became a civil parish. From 1894 it was part of Blaydon Urban District and in 1937 it was abolished and absorbed into Blaydon. [edit] Research Tips
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