They emerged from the intense heat of the furnace, every day, simple objects that would revolutionise kitchens up and down the land.

When Falkirk’s Carron Company foundry cracked the method of creating cast iron frying pans that could be easily mass produced, it brought a new, cleaner and easier way of cooking for the masses.

It was the mid-18th century, and before long homes across the country would be able to conjure up meals on affordable and durable cookware, opening a new world of cooking and heralding a kitchen revolution.

The mass-produced cast-iron pans and pots were churned out in their thousands by ‘Ironheart’ foundries dotted across the Falkirk area and sent around the world.

But while a certain French brand of cast iron pots and pans would go on to corner a very prestigious market, Scottish varieties disappeared long ago.

Now a Falkirk group dedicated to keeping the achievements of the area’s foundries alive has embarked on a labour of love to faithfully reproduce the humble cast iron frying pan that transformed the lives of millions of Scots.

The task is harder than it sounds: while at one point around 60 foundries in the Falkirk area powered the industrial revolution, most were closed by the 1970s, and today only a handful of iron foundries remain in Scotland.

Making a mould suitable for producing the revived pan using traditional green sand techniques brought its own difficulties, as has the challenge of creating a pan that is not too heavy to actually use.

The first prototype frying pan, carrying the Falkirk name and emblazoned with the Carron foundry’s motto, ‘Esto Perpetua’ – meaning Live Forever, has now been created after a collaboration between the group of enthusiasts, a pattern maker based in Glasgow and foundry in Fife.

Named Ironheart - the collective name given to Falkirk’s foundries - it has been made using iron recycled from K6 style red telephone kiosks which were also made in huge numbers at the Carron works.

The group plans to create the Ironheart pans for their own use, there are hopes that the story behind them may spark enough interest among enthusiasts of cast iron cooking utensils – such as the hugely popular Le Creuset brand - for more to be made.

The move is part of a wider effort to ignite interest in Falkirk’s long lost industrial heritage. With dozens of foundries in the town and surrounding areas, it became the driving force of the Industrial Revolution and a major centre of the iron-casting industry.

At its forefront was the Carron foundry, which cast some of the beams for James Watt’s early steam engine designs and was famous for producing ship cannons known as ‘the Carronade’. The guns were favoured by the Royal Navy for a century and delivered around the world.

The company grew to become the largest iron works in Europe, employing over 2,000 workers.

Duncan Comrie, secretary of heritage group Falkirk Made Friends, said that the Carron foundry’s production of cannons and engines for steamers has overshadowed the countless everyday objects made in Falkirk and at nearby foundries in Bo’ness, Bonnybridge, Larbert and Denny, and which significantly improved the health and lives of ordinary Scots.

“Although the Carron Company is often linked with the origins of industrial revolution in Scotland, how it and some 60 local Ironheart foundries transformed public health has been given little notice,” he said.

“The light castings industry made a significant contribution to society through domestic products which included kitchen range cookers, heating stoves, radiators, bathtubs, fireplaces, shoe lasts, sad irons, rainwater and sanitation drainage.”

The frying pan was a unique product of the new cast iron industry which was only created once a new moulding technique had been perfected, he added.

“Carron was not the origin of the green sand technique but it was the first modern planned foundry in the UK, if not in the world, to use it as a way to make useful products at a cost that made them affordable to the general public.

“The frying pan had instant popularity and a ready market.

“Before the cast iron frying pan and pot, you either had to go to the blacksmith to get cooking equipment made or, if you had money, you might have a brass pot or a griddle.

“The foundry’s history is obscured by its manufacture of cannons, but it was cooking pots that were by made at Carron – the only place at the time that made them in the whole of Scotland – that made the real difference to people’s lives.

“Carron ironworks was able to make them as cheaply as possible and the cast iron pot revolutionised how people cooked.”

Countless pots and pans were made in the town and sent across the country. Eventually attention turned to creating new iron stoves and ranges to make cooking safer and cleaner.

One of the earliest versions of a Carron-made range was snapped up by poet Robert Burns, a friend of a Carron Company director, and who wanted the latest in kitchen ‘gadgets’ in his new farm at Ellisland in Ayrshire.

Mr Comrie added: “The Carron Company realised there had to be a better way of cooking. They had developed the pans so went on to make better ranges and to constantly innovate.”

The more efficient, insulated and enamel coated Aga cooker range was developed in Sweden in the 1920s, which meant women no longer had to spent hours cleaning and tending to the oven and stove.

Falkirk foundries took on the licence to manufacture the Aga stoves and developed a less expensive Rayburn brand which became a feature in homes across Scotland.

While in Bonnybridge, the Columbian Stove Works launched ESSE ranges and stoves, favoured by Florence Nightingale at her Balaclava hospital, and on board the vessels used by polar explorers Shackleton and Scott.

However, by the 1970s the fires of Falkirk’s remaining few foundries were dimming, and items like frying pans and kitchen utensils were no longer made.

Mr Comrie said the search to create the new Ironheart pan, with distinctive long handle and double spout, has so far involved Glasgow-based pattern makers J. Miller of Clydebank, and the expertise of three foundries: Ballantines in Bo'ness, Archibald Young's in Kirkintilloch and Charles Laing's in Lochgelly, which has created the latest prototype.

“It seems crazy that no one in Britain can make a frying pan to compete with the ones you see on sale in John Lewis for £150. Why should they have all the market?,” he said.

“Falkirk’s foundries made a huge contribution to public health, they revolutionised cooking and bathing.

“The Ironheart cast iron frying pan feels like the rediscovery of the lost art of making a product that still has a market today.”