Pricing Change
New pricing for orders of material from this site will come into place shortly. Charges for supply of digital images, digitisation on demand, prints and licensing will be altered.
Taynuilt, Bonawe Furnace, Shore House, Worker's House & Bakery
Bakery (18th Century), Workers Cottage (18th Century)
Site Name Taynuilt, Bonawe Furnace, Shore House, Worker's House & Bakery
Classification Bakery (18th Century), Workers Cottage (18th Century)
Canmore ID 316418
Site Number NN03SW 91
NGR NN 01010 31980
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/316418
- Council Argyll And Bute
- Parish Glenorchy And Inishail (Argyll And Bute)
- Former Region Strathclyde
- Former District Argyll And Bute
- Former County Argyll
Two storey former workers dwellings and bakery (to rear). Rubble, part harled, slate roof. Entrance stairs to rear (now lost).
In 1752-3 Richard Ford & Company of Cumbria, later known as the Newland Company, established Bonawe Ironworks, negociating with local landowners for a supply of wood to provide charcoal for smelting. A kilometre long lade was cut from the River Awe to provide water power and a jetty built on the loch to receive iron ore, imported by sea from Furness in Lancashire and Central Scotland. The industry prospered and a community of local labour and English immigrants developed with workers housing and allotments built with grazing rights also allocated. Oak bark, a by-product of charcoal production, was exported, as for a time spun into a yarn by the workers' wives. By 1876 production at Lorn Furnace had ceased. (FA Walker)
Measured Survey (July 1966)
Measured survey of ground and first floor plans of NE workers dwellings. Redrawn in ink and published at a reduced scale (RCAHMS 1975, figs 244).
Field Visit (September 1971)
There are two main groups of workers' dwellings, of which the larger comprises a two storeyed block of L-plan standing about 100 m NE of the furnace (Fig. 244, Pl. 116A). This appears to have been erected in three successive stages, the E range possibly dating from about the second half of the 18th century, the southern portion of the N range from the early 19th century, and the remainder of the N range from a somewhat later period in the same century. All the buildings are constructed of local rubble laid in lime mortar, and the roofs are slated. Timber lintels are used throughout, and those in the E range appear to have been protected externally by stone drip-courses, a characteristic which suggests that this portion of the structure was erected by Lakeland workmen.
The building has been altered to a considerable extent during occupation, and part of the interior has recently been gutted by fire, so that it is now difficult to determine the precise nature of the original layout. Thus, the E range may originally have been divided into flats, as it is today, having a series of three- or four-roomed. dwellings at each level, of which those on the first floor were approached from forestairs on the N side. On the other hand, it is clear that some, at least, of the present forestairs are of secondary construction, while the existence of blocked-up internal staircases at the W end of the range indicates that at some period provision was made for a pair of two-storeyed dwellings, each containing about half a dozen rooms. The southern portion of the N range, which local tradition holds to have been an overseer's house, appears to have been designed as a substantial two-storeyed dwelling, but the remainder of the N range was probably always divided into flats. This latter portion of the building comprises a series of four room dwellings of which those on the first floor are reached by means of forestairs on the E side. The northernmost section of the ground-floor area was a bake-house, and incorporates a brick-vaulted bake-oven housed in an adjacent outshot.
RCAHMS 1975, visited September 1971
