Greenock, Cartsburn Street

Running from May 2016 to September 2017 and part of the Canmore Mapping Programme, Yard by Yard was an area-focused, desk-based project that tested the Defining Scotland’s Places (DSP) methodology in an area for which the records in the NRHE showed considerable variation from one historic map source to another.

Following discussions with local heritage groups and with the ambition of collecting data useful to the communities’ ambition to develop a coastal heritage trail, the project aimed to map the extent of the shipyards and associated industry between Port Glasgow and Greenock. To achieve this aim, the project used historic mapping, ortho-rectified modern aerial photography and the HES aerial photograph collection to map the extents of, and upgrade the records of, the shipyards and associated features such as quays, docks, areas of land reclamation and associated industry.

This large foundry, which is depicted on the OS large scale Town Plan (Greenock 1857, sheet II.6.22), was situated south of the railway and occupied both sides of East Stewart Street, extending as far as Cartsburn Street on the SE and St Andrews Street on the NW. The complex of buildings and yards included a boiler house, pattern shop, fitting shop, smithy, moulding shop and turning shop. The 2nd edition of the OS 25-inch map (Renfrewshire 1939, sheet II.6) demonstrates how the foundry had expanded by the end of the 19th century to take in land on the N side of the railway. The works was demolished in the late 1980s or 1990s and a new factory was constructed on the site.

The contemporary OS Name Book (Renfrewshire Book No. 8, page 160) describes the foundry as ‘Greenock Iron Foundry Extensive Buildings from 1 to 2 Story high. It is bounded on the E. [East] by Cartsburn Street and by the W. [West] Deerpark House Wall in good repair & is the property of John Scott & Sinclair in Co. [Company]’

Information from HES, Survey and Recording (AKK) 2 April 2017.