View from SSE showing ESE and SSW fronts of blowing engine house

Description View from SSE showing ESE and SSW fronts of blowing engine house

Date 12/5/1971

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

Catalogue Number SC 782754

Category On-line Digital Images

Scope and Content Shotts Iron Works, Burnbrae Road, Shotts, North Lanarkshire This shows the house for the steam blowing engine which supplied blast air to the furnaces after the works was enlarged in about 1840. The furnaces were ranged along the bank to the right. The brick tower supplied water to cool the nozzles (tuyeres) through which the blast air entered the furnaces. The round-topped tank to the left of the engine house is on the roof of an earlier engine house, possibly the original one of 1802. The tank was probably used as an air receiver to even out the pressure of the blast air. These houses were demolished after the foundry closed in the 1970s, but the furnace bank survives. This works was founded in 1802 by the Shotts Iron Co, and continued to smelt iron until 1947, when the coal industry was nationalised. It had always had a foundry and engineering works, and these were retained by the National Coal Board. They were still operating on a limited scale in 1971. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

External Reference H35/71/42/5

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/782754

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap