Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Highlands and Islands
Date 2007
Event ID 934426
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/934426
Suishnish Pier, Isle of Raasay
(Institute Civil Engineers Historic Engineering Works no. HEW 1878)
Between 1910 and 1913 Wm. Baird & Co. of Gartsherrie decided to mine a source of iron on the island of Raasay.
The mine required a considerable infrastructure to allow the ore to be removed and shipped, and a narrow-gauge railway, crusher, kilns, hopper, pier and other structures were built, mostly of mass and reinforced concrete. Today all are in ruins except the pier which is still used by the Sconser–Raasay ferry.
The pier is a reinforced-concrete structure projecting seawards 380 ft with a pier head frontage 150 ft wide. Unusual features are the movement joint between the pier head and jetty approach, and the use of gravel-filled
boxes in the structure to provide mass for the absorption of berthing forces.
The engineer for the Raasay mine infrastructure and pier was Robert Simpson of Simpson & Wilson, consulting engineers, Glasgow. The pier,which is of unique construction,was designed by F.A. MacDonald & Partners and constructed by Robert McAlpine & Sons in 1913–14. The mine labour force included German prisoners during the first world war.
Aspects of the installation, such as the pier, diesel-electric power generation and the provision of powerful external electric lighting were state of the art at the time.
R Paxton and J Shipway, 2007.
Reproduced from 'Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Highlands and Islands' with kind permission from Thomas Telford Publishers.
