Interior. View from S within engine house showing steam engine. Similar to the original engine, this is a 250hp twin-tandem compound mill engine by Petrie of Rochdale (1912) re-located from Philiphau ...

Description Interior. View from S within engine house showing steam engine. Similar to the original engine, this is a 250hp twin-tandem compound mill engine by Petrie of Rochdale (1912) re-located from Philiphaugh Mill near Selkirk by the New Lanark Conservation Trust

Date 13/6/2002

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

Catalogue Number E 32623 CN

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copies SC 755078

Scope and Content Steam engine, The Institute, New Lanark, South Lanarkshire This shows the 1912 twin tandem compound engine made by J Petrie of Rochdale, originally from Philiphaugh Mill, Selkirk. This engine replaced a 550-horsepower horizontal engine by the same maker which was installed in 1882 and scrapped in the mid-20th century. This smaller engine is encircled by a walkway and the walls of the engine house were originally plastered. The engine house was built in 1881 adjoining the Institute, and the original engine was used only when the water level was too low or frozen to work the waterwheels in the mills. The engine house is connected to Mill No 3 by a covered bridge. This is a replica of the covering for the rope drive system which transferred the power generated by the steam engine to the mill. 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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