Gorbals Water Works, Waulkmill Glen, Low Filters Regulating House

NS55NW 146.34 52240 5797

See NS55NW 146.00 for history and description of Gorbals Gravitational Waterworks

This octagonal emphatically rusticated masonry building sits at the N end of the sluice/regulating basins complex(NS55NW 146.31 and NS55NW 146.32 )and between the two regulating basins (NS55NW 146.33) in Waulkmill Glen. The intake from the Low Filters is carried in an arched conduit measuring 1.22m (4 imperial feet) in width. A 17-inch (0.43m) cast-iron pipe feeding compensation water into the Brock Burn is also to be found in the regulating house.

Infomation from Jelle Muylle, engineer carrying out survey of sites and structures of Gorbals Waterworks for RCAHMS, Historic Scotland funded, December 2007.

Single-storey, octagonal-plan building with round-arched doorway and stone-mullioned tripartite windows. Rusticated sandstone ashlar with pronounced quirky vermiculation and polished ashlar dressings. Base course; eaves band; projecting stone eaves. Entrance with roll-moulded margin and pronounced voussiors; tripartite windows with projecting cills to alternate elevations. Shallow piended roof with squat stone finial.

Part of Waulkmill Glen reservoir, the largest of the 3 reservoirs built as part of the first phase of the Gorbals Gravitation Water Company´s water supply scheme, constructed in 1847-8. This was one of the first large-scale water supply schemes in Scotland and, although eclipsed by the slightly later scheme from Loch Katrine, is nevertheless of considerable historical and engineering interest. Waulkmill Glen reservoir covers an area of nearly 48 acres and has a capacity of roughly 36.5 million cubic feet. Water originally fed into the reservoir from the Brock Burn, but this arrangement was altered with the building of the Balgray reservoir (as part of the expansion of the scheme) in 1853. Water is drawn out of the reservoir through the draw-off tower, and passed through the self-activating sluice (located on the other side of the embankment dam) before discharging into the two regulating basins. From there it flowed through pipes to the low filters, which were demolished 2007-8, but were located roughly 300 yards to the NE. (ref: Historic Scotland)