General view from N showing Dye Works in the context of the River Clyde

Description General view from N showing Dye Works in the context of the River Clyde

Date 12/6/2002

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

Catalogue Number E 32613 CN

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copies SC 755068

Scope and Content Dyeworks, New Lanark, South Lanarkshire, from north This shows the dyeworks, built around 1806, beside the River Clyde, with the Engineers' Shop on the left and the retort house and chimney-stack in the right background. The rubble-built buildings of the dyeworks are mainly single-storeyed with tiled roofs. The falls of Dundaff Linn are on the right. The dyeworks was originally the brass and iron foundry where all the machinery used in the mills would be made and repaired. The 7m-diameter overshot wheel which powered the building was removed in 1929. The dyeworks would have been used to dye the cotton produced in the mills and was converted in 1984 into a visitor centre for the Scottish Wildlife Trust with craft units opened in 1986. 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.

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