1) A specialist forge, worked from the late sixteenth century in conjunction with a finery. It derives from the French word for 'to heat' and was where cast iron was re-heated and converted into wrought iron.
In a legal dispute about Shipley iron works in 1593 a witness described himself as a ‘worker at the … chafery of an iron forge’. The Wortley Forge accounts of 1695-1702 note One pair of Chafery Bellows, Ł9 and the word is used frequently in the eighteenth-century accounts for Colne Bridge forge, e.g. 1733 Chafrey Wheele Beam and Harness all new Ł25
1746 New Chafrey Bellows made at Colnbr: Ł4 9s 6d’. In the late eighteenth century the puddling process replaced both the finery and the chafery.