Architecture Notes

Event ID 841775

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Architecture Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/841775

NT27NW 350 centred 233 770

Originating in Glasgow in 1825 with the establishment of a wire-making business by William McMurray, the United Works was formed in 1897 through the merger of Robert McFarlane & Son (Edina Works, Leith), MacCormack & Mills (Baltic Works, Bridgeton, Glasgow), James Brodie & Co (Great Eastern Works, Glasgow), and William Mountain & Sons (Trafalgar Wire Works, Newcastle-upon-Tyne). The company concentrated its production at the former Madelvic Car Factory in Granton in 1925, and added its own wire mill in 1941.

The complex manufactured wire cloth for a variety of industrial uses, but its primary market was the Scottish paper industry. As this declined in the late 20th century, other products such as filters and battery components grew in importance, and in 2001, the broadloom division was closed, wire cloth manufacture being reduced to small-loom production. The brass foundry and wire mill were subsequently sold to a separate company.

The works included at its east end the former Madelvic Car Factory (which produced cars from 1898 to 1900), this area being devoted to broadloom production, and the Paper Products Department. At the west end of the site were the South Mill (foundry and annealing departments) and the North Mill (wire drawing mill, built in 1941). Most of these and the other buildings in the complex are single-storeyed steel-framed brick constructions. At the time of survey in 2001, weaving had been concentrated in the Small-Loom Weaving Department in a blue-brick building at the south-east corner of the complex, which dated from 1964.

Information from the company and 'The History of the United Wire Works', (1947), Pillans & Wilson, Edinburgh

Information from RCAHMS.

(MKO 2003)