An ironworks or iron works is an industrial plant where iron is smelted and where heavy iron and steel products are made. The term is both singular and plural, i.e. the singular of ironworks is ironworks.
The Iron Rolling Mill (Eisenwalzwerk), 1870s, by Adolph Menzel.
Casting at an iron foundry: From Fra Burmeister og Wain's Iron Foundry, 1885 by Peder Severin Krøyer
A South Wales iron mill in 1798
Blast furnaces of Třinec Iron and Steel Works.
Puddling is the process of converting pig iron to bar (wrought) iron in a coal fired reverberatory furnace. It was developed in England during the 1780s. The molten pig iron was stirred in a reverberatory furnace, in an oxidizing environment to burn the carbon, resulting in wrought iron. It was one of the most important processes for making the first appreciable volumes of valuable and useful bar iron without the use of charcoal. Eventually, the furnace would be used to make small quantities of specialty steels.
Schematic drawing of a puddling furnace