Capewell's Horseshoe Forge: Hartford's Nail Kingdom, Until It Crumbled in 2012

The Capewell Horse Nail Company, at 60-70 Popieluszko Court, Hartford, emerged in 1903, replacing its ancestor reduced to cinders. Twenty years later, with the 1881 invention of a transformative machine, Capewell erected its new factory. Distinctive, it boasted a Romanesque Revival-style architecture, boasting a brick square tower and a high, pyramidal roof. While architecturally striking, its administrative details failed to attract a name. The factory's Jacobean front gable, characterised by elaborate brickwork, was not the town's only boast.

By 1970, Hartford/Standard Machine Screw Company secured the factory, shifting it to private ownership in the early 1980s. Capewell staggered on until it took its final breath in 2012. Fast forward to 2014, the Corporation for Independent Living seized control of the former Capewell property, planning to convert it into apartments. In 2000, the National Register bestowed upon the building's decay a formal recognition, categorizing it as Historic Places.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons