text: Sometime in the medieval period, water power was applied to the bloomery process.  It is possible that this was at the Cistercian Abbey of Clairvaux as early as 1135, but it was certainly in use in early 13th century France and Sweden. In England, the first clear documentary evidence for this is the accounts of a forge of the Bishop of Durham, near Bedburn in 1408, but that was certainly not the first such ironworks.  In the Furness district of England, powered bloomeries were in use into the beginning of the 18th century, and near Garstang until about 1770.
  The Catalan Forge was a variety of powered bloomery.  Bloomeries with hot blast were used in upstate New York in the mid-19th century.