Archaeology Notes
Event ID 676169
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Archaeology Notes
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/676169
NN03SW 5.00 centred 00974 31882
(Area centred NN 010 318) Lorn Furnace (NAT)
(NN 0125 3170) Bonawe House (NAT) (See NN03SW 5.01)
OS 6" map, Argyllshire, 2nd ed., (1900)
NN03SW 5.01 NN 01255 31801 Bonawe House
NN03SW 5.02 NN 00985 31874 Lorn Furnace (Lorne Furnace)
NN03SW 5.03 NN 01010 31846 ore-shed
NN03SW 5.04 NN 01004 31814 E charcoal-shed
NN03SW 5.05 NN 00967 31819 W charcoal-shed
NN03SW 5.06 NN 01007 31964 Shore House / NE workers' dwellings
NN03SW 5.07 NN 01075 31790 1-4 Lochandhu Cottages / SE workers' dwellings
NN03SW 5.08 NN 01513 32021 aqueduct
NN03SW 5.09 NN 01057 31956 domestic outbuildings
NN03SW 5.10 NN 0150 3074 cultivation remains
For (associated) Bonawe Jetty or Pier (NN 0075 3217), see NN03SW 16.
For associated weir across River Awe (at NN 01643 32049), see NN03SW 45.
NMRS REFERENCE:
Scottish Field October 1966 p. 42 - article and photographs
(Undated) information in NMRS.
As described.
Surveyed at 1:2500.
Visited by OS (GHP) 18 April 1962 and (RD) 21 October 1971
The Lorn iron furnace at Bonawe, near Taynuilt, is an important example of early industrial activity in Scotland. It was established by the Newland Company (later known as the Lorn Furnace Company) in 1753 with the object of using locally produced charcoal to smelt haematite ore brought from Lancashire and Cumberland. As well as constructing a furnace and workers' dwellings, the company erected numerous ancillary buildings including a school, a church, and a quay, thus creating a small industrial community which soon became an object of some curiosity to travellers in the Highlands. The furnace was finally closed down in 1874 and the buildings thereafter abandoned or put to other uses and generally the small complex was in danger of obliteration by neglect.
An extensive programme of repair and consolidation is currently being undertaken by DoE.
The furnace buildings occupy a focal position on the site, standing a little to the north of the coal-house and ore shed, and immediately beside the principal access road from the quay. The blast furnace itself survives more or less intact together with the ruins of other ancillary buildings and structures.
Nearby Bonawe House was built as a residence for the manager of the company and is situated in wooded grounds 300 metres ESE of the main group of furnace buildings (see NN03SW 5.1).
(A detailed description of the furnace and the various buildings on the site is given).
A Fell 1908; RCAHMS 1975, visited 1971.
(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.
Bonawe (Lorne Furnace). Complete ironworks complex, with furnace ('BUNAW.F.1753' - on lintel), without lining, filling house, ruins of casting house, two charcoal sheds and one shed. Also fine L-shaped row of worker's housing (2 storey). All stone built, slate roofed, houses whitewashed.
Visited and photographed by J R Hume, University of Strathclyde, 1977.
NMRS, MS/749/77/1.
