View from NW showing part of NNE front of oldest block

Description View from NW showing part of NNE front of oldest block

Date 1969

Collection Papers of Professor John R Hume, economic and industrial historian, Glasgow, Scotland

Catalogue Number SC 699335

Category On-line Digital Images

Scope and Content Greenhead Works, Nos 25-45 Greenhead Street, Glasgow This works was founded on this site in 1859 by R & J Dick, gutta-percha manufacturers in a former cotton mill built in about 1840. An ashlar-fronted four-storey block was added in 1872-3, and a similar three-storey block in 1886. This was extended in 1888-89 in red and white brick. This shows the former cotton mill from the north-east, seen from a courtyard entering from Arcadia Street. This was probably built as a power-loom weaving factory. The shallow projecting bays housed lavatories, and the rounded projection is a stair tower. Dicks began using gutta-percha, a natural thermo-plastic, to make the soles of canvas shoes, hence the Glasgow term 'gutties' to describe canvas shoes. In the late 1880s they began using another natural product, balata, to make driving belts for machinery, hence the additions of 1886-89. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

External Reference H35/69/22/4

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/699335

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap