Field Visit

Date 14 May 1976

Event ID 545821

Category Recording

Type Field Visit

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/545821

JR Hume Industrial Archaeology Survey

(Location cited as NN 093 318). Founded 1752 by Richard and William Ford, James Backhouse and Michael Knot; the most important monument of the early Scottish iron industry.

The furnace is square in plan, rubble-built, with a brick stack; the lower part of the lining is missing. The lintels above the tuyeres arch and tap hole are cast iron, one bearing the inscription 'Bunaw F 1753'. Attached to the furnace are the bridgehouse and fragments of the walls of the blowing-engine house and the casting house.

Behind the furnace are three sheds; the larger two were charcoal sheds and the the third, which has partitions internally, was an ore shed. Adjuncts include two ranges of workers' housing (one of them on an L-plan), and a rubble pier (on a T-plan).

Now a Guardianship Monument, beautifully restored by the Department of the Environment.

J R Hume 1977.