View of Lochee Road entrance from East. Digital image of A 38503

Description View of Lochee Road entrance from East. Digital image of A 38503

Date 3/1986

Catalogue Number SC 787424

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of A 38503

Scope and Content Main entrance front of the Tay Works, No 2 Lochee Road, Dundee This is the entrance to the Tay Works from the east. The entrance is part of the south block which dates to 1863-5. The block is 23 bays wide, with 12 bays to the left, and ten bays to the right of the entrance. The block is built in a Classical style, and it has a triangular pediment containing a large armorial. This iron-framed block probably replaced Boyack's mills, and Joseph Lindsay of the Gilroy Brothers Engineering Department, and previously of Lilybank Foundry, was in charge of the construction. Dundee was an important whaling centre from the late 18th century onwards, and this proved to be an important factor in Dundee's development as the world's leading centre of jute manufacture. Samples of jute were sent to textile centres in Britain by the East India Company to see if anyone was interested in such a cheap fibre. Jute was, however, dry and brittle but in Dundee they were able to solve this problem before other centres by adding whale oil and water. The Tay Works in Lochee Road, Dundee, began as a business in 1849 when the Gilroy Brothers bought several mills from a bankrupt flax spinner. The works was extended further with the building of other mills and factories between 1851 and 1881. By 1877 Gilroy Sons & Co was the second biggest jute manufacturer in the world. By the 1970s the jute industry had declined, and in 1986 much of the Tay Works was converted into student residences. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

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File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap