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Field Visit
Date September 1971
Event ID 1190444
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1190444
There are two main groups of workers' dwellings, of which the larger comprises a two storeyed block of L-plan standing about 100 m NE of the furnace (Fig. 244, Pl. 116A). This appears to have been erected in three successive stages, the E range possibly dating from about the second half of the 18th century, the southern portion of the N range from the early 19th century, and the remainder of the N range from a somewhat later period in the same century. All the buildings are constructed of local rubble laid in lime mortar, and the roofs are slated. Timber lintels are used throughout, and those in the E range appear to have been protected externally by stone drip-courses, a characteristic which suggests that this portion of the structure was erected by Lakeland workmen.
The building has been altered to a considerable extent during occupation, and part of the interior has recently been gutted by fire, so that it is now difficult to determine the precise nature of the original layout. Thus, the E range may originally have been divided into flats, as it is today, having a series of three- or four-roomed. dwellings at each level, of which those on the first floor were approached from forestairs on the N side. On the other hand, it is clear that some, at least, of the present forestairs are of secondary construction, while the existence of blocked-up internal staircases at the W end of the range indicates that at some period provision was made for a pair of two-storeyed dwellings, each containing about half a dozen rooms. The southern portion of the N range, which local tradition holds to have been an overseer's house, appears to have been designed as a substantial two-storeyed dwelling, but the remainder of the N range was probably always divided into flats. This latter portion of the building comprises a series of four room dwellings of which those on the first floor are reached by means of forestairs on the E side. The northernmost section of the ground-floor area was a bake-house, and incorporates a brick-vaulted bake-oven housed in an adjacent outshot.
RCAHMS 1975, visited September 1971
