Archaeology Notes

Event ID 861402

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/861402

NN00SW 14 02309 00420

Site of ironworks in 1751, and later a Powder Factory; the waterwheel and some buildings are still traceable.

M Campbell and M Sandeman 1964.

Site was examined prior to the refurbishment and upgrading of the Scottish Hydro-Electric Port Ann to Lochgair power line.

NN 0225 0030 At Furnace is the site of a gun powder works. The proposed route of the power line across this site ensured the structures were unaffected by the refurbishment works.

Sponsor: Scottish Hydro-Electric plc.

L H Johnstone 1999.

This works was established in 1841 by Robert Sheriff, who also owned the powder works at Glen Lean (Clachaig). It was ideally suited to take advantage of plentiful local supplies of charcoal released after the closure of the neighbouring iron furnace. However, the site was dangerously close to existing development, and therefore fell foul of the Explosives Act of 1875 when it was observed that several components of the works were both too close to each other, and too close to the village. These regulations were waived as the site pre-dated the Act. The Lochfyne Powder Works Company (Limited) was subsequently taken over in the late 1870s by John Hall and Son of Faversham, Kent. In 1883 a serious explosion confirmed the doubts raised previously. The blast not only caused several injuries and much damage in the village, but also killed the manager who was standing in the garden of his house at the time. The works were never re-opened and all machinery was stripped out and taken to Faversham (Fraser, 1971).

Lochfyne Powder works is located 200m to the NW of the village of Furnace on the W side of the road from Inveraray to Lochgilphead. The mills were all water-powered, drawing water at a weir on the Leacann Water 1100m to the N. The buildings are mostly rubble-built with locally sourced pink granite quoins and margins, but several of the earlier (pre-1870) structures are built entirely of pink granite. Some of the later buildings , which appeared between 1870 and 1883, were probably improvements following the takeover by John Hall and Son. All are roofless, and are in varying states of ruin. The site of the wo7rks is roughly triangular, extending 400m from N to S, and from W to E to a maximum of 200m. Although previously wooded for safety reasons (with the exception of an open, flat central area), the trees have since been cleared, leaving only a small potion of woodland in the N quarter f the site. In this area, a dam collected water from the lade in a small pond, dispatching it both SW into a lade feeding mills in the S portion of the works, and SE into a second lade leading to a range of six incorporating mills 30m away, and on to more mills on the E side of the works.

The range of six incorporating mills (NR0226 0054) of the finest and most complete structure on the site. Built after 1870, it comprises a row of six open-fronted , rubble-built mill chambers, each driven by under-floor shafting in a vaulted channel (2m in width and 2.6m in depth) running under the entire length of the range. The floors of the two mills at the N end of the range remain intact, revealing an aperture 1m square passing through the vault, which is lined with 26 courses of red plastic hand moulded bricks. Each of the square apertures is surrounded by a circular kerb of 1.25m radius, resting on the extrados of the vault. No evidence of drive shaft fixtures remains in the vaulted channel, which also functioned a s atail race with an arched entrance at its N end. There is also no evidence remaining of the power source, which may have either been a waterwheel or (more probably) a turbine situated at the N end of the range. Ot has been suggested that there may have been a detached waterwheel at the S end of the range connected connected to the mills by line-shaft (information from Dr Edward Patterson).

The six mills combine to form a windowless rectangular babled block 37.5m in length and 6.7m in width, with wall up to 1m in thickness, but open on the W side. Each mill is about 5.sm in width, 5.7m in depth and 3.5m in height (to the wallhead). All had plastered walls with scarcements indicating the possible position of an upper floor or gallery above the pan mills. It is also probable that these new incorporating mills replaced earlier mills elsewhere in the works.

After leaving the Incorporating Mills, the lade progresses S towards a group of ruinous unidentified process buildings, and eventually drains into the Leacann Water. The other lade flowed SW, with sluices taking water SE along the subsidiary lades to a granulating house and a glazing house, some of whose walls have survived. Other buildings with relatively substantial remains include a magazine with a brick-vaulted roof in the centre of the site, and a variety of rubble-bult structures which have since been re-used. These include the office and watch house near the works entrance, both of which have been converted to dwellings. Diagonally opposite, to the SE and on the other side of the road, is a terrace of three brick-built workers' houses named 'Powder Mills Cottages'. These date to before 1870 and are constructed from red hand-made bricks and have a gabled slate roofs. The fourth cottage butted onto the n end is a recent addition. The works manager lived at a house named 'Inverleckan' 60m to the SE of the S end of the works.

Black powder was shipped out by boat from the harbour at Furnace, and was stored between sailings in a rubble-built magazine 100m to the E of the S end of the works. The building is now much altered, and a large rubble baffle wall on its SE end was demolished in 1986. Raw materials were also brought in by sea to Furnace. The function of the ruinous structures are difficult to be identify, including buildings associated with refining sulphur and saltpetre as well as standard processing such as mixing, pressing, dusting, drying and heading. It is known, for example, that there was a boiler house which provided heat for the stoves that were used to dry the black powder, and it was in this area that the accident occurred in 1883. The mounds of debris and a sizeable depression in the far S of the works may well originate from the fatal explosion.

Visited by Miles K Oglethorpe, Industrial Survey, RCAHMS, 1995.

There was a large 'detached' waterwheel to the to the S end of the range which was connected to the mills by a long line-shaft.

Information from (the late) Dr Edward Patterson, East Kilbride, 1995.