View from N of N end of range of wool-preparation houses (converted to self-catering cottages), with tailrace emerging from below, and rear of Mill No.1 to left

Description View from N of N end of range of wool-preparation houses (converted to self-catering cottages), with tailrace emerging from below, and rear of Mill No.1 to left

Date 12/6/2002

Collection Records of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS), Edinbu

Catalogue Number E 32486 CN

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copies SC 754943

Scope and Content Water-houses, New Lanark, South Lanarkshire, from north This shows the two-storeyed water-houses, built between 1809 and 1810, with Mill No 1 on the left and the River Clyde on the right. The arch (centre) is over the tail-race which runs under Mill No 1 and parallel with the other three mills. Water which has flowed along this lade and which originally powered the waterwheels in the mills rejoins the river on the right. The water-houses were originally used as stores for raw and waste cotton, and as picking houses where cotton was beaten. 300 bales of cotton could be stored in each cotton cellar. By 1903 these buildings were used for mule spinning and were converted into self-catering accommodation between 1996 and 1997. New Lanark was founded c.1785 by David Dale (1739-1806), a Glasgow merchant, and Richard Arkwright (1732-92), inventor of a water-frame for cotton spinning. Powered by water flowing from the Falls of Clyde the first cotton mill opened in 1786 and by 1799 the complex was the largest of its kind in Scotland. Robert Owen (1771-1858), who was married to David Dale's daughter, was one of a group who bought the mills in 1800. He transformed them into a model industrial community with good working conditions, houses, a non-profit store, a school and an institute for workers. Owen's partners bought the mills in 1828 and operated them until 1881 when another partnership took over. The Gourock Ropework Company ran the site until 1968 which is now mainly under the care of the New Lanark Conservation Trust (founded 1974-5). New Lanark was designated a World Heritage Site in 2001. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/753740