Alcobaca Monastery
From Graces Guide
in Portugal.
The Cistercian Monastery of Alcobaça was founded in 1153. The monks only moved to the new stone monastery buildings in 1223, and the church was completed in 1252. The kitchen of the monastery was built and covered with tiles in the mid-18th century. The enormous central chimney flue is supported by eight iron columns. Water and fresh fish were diverted from the river Alcoa to the kitchen basin through a specially-built canal.[1]
The supports for the kitchen flue, dating from 1752, are regarded as the first use anywhere of cast iron columns for structural purposes.
A photograph here shows that the use of iron in the chimney supports was not limited to the columns: they support a bolted frame, probably of wrought iron [2]
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