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Greenock, Arthur Street, Engine Works

Engineering Works (19th Century) - (20th Century)

Site Name Greenock, Arthur Street, Engine Works

Classification Engineering Works (19th Century) - (20th Century)

Alternative Name(s) John Hastie And Son; Arthur Street Works; Caird And Co; John G Kincaid And Co Ltd

Canmore ID 68394

Site Number NS27NE 27

NGR NS 28790 75593

NGR Description Centred NS 28790 75593

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/68394

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
Canmore Disclaimer. © Copyright and database right 2024.

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Administrative Areas

  • Council Inverclyde
  • Parish Greenock
  • Former Region Strathclyde
  • Former District Inverclyde
  • Former County Renfrewshire

Archaeology Notes

NS27NE 27 centred 28790 75593

Location formerly cited as NS 287 756.

Engine Works [NAT]

OS (GIS) ep. 4,

(Location cited as NS 288 756). Engine Works, founded 1845 by Joh Hastie and Son. The oldest block here is a tall single-storey, cast-iron framed red-and-white-brick building on an L plan, with Belfast roof and a circular turnpike stair in the angle of the L. There is a square-section brick chimney.

J R Hume 1976.

A photographic survey of this 'A'-listed building was completed by RCAHMS in 1988, after which (c1990) it was demolished and significant portions of its fabric (notably the cast-iron frame) were salvaged and stored at the site of the Dunaskin Heritage Centre at Waterside near Dalmellington in Ayrshire.

By 2002, the planned re-erection of the building had not occurred, and its cast-iron components had become an obstacle to the development of the railway yard at Dunaskin. It was estimated that it would cost thirty two thousand pounds merely to move the frames to another part of the site, and no other organisation showed an interest in the building. After consultation, it was therefore decided to scrap the frames to permit the new development at the yard.

Information from RCAHMS (MKO), 23 October 2002.

Activities

Project (May 2016 - September 2017)

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.

Note (22 June 2017)

This large iron foundry is depicted on the OS large scale Town Plan (Greenock 1857, sheet II.6.23), standing to the NE of Arthur Street and bounded by the railway on the S. At that time it comprising over twenty buildings, some of them, including moulding, turning and finishing shops, a dressing shed and a brass foundry, ranged around an irregularly-shaped yard that contained, close to its centre, a turntable that allowed railed vehicles to be directed towards different parts of the complex. The open yard also contained a crane. Another yard on the SW side of the complex had a boiler house and grinding shop at its NW end, a fitting shop and office on its SW side (fronting on to Arthur Street, and a store shed and a rust shed at its SE end. At the NE end of the foundry was another large yard containing a crane in its N corner.

The OS Name Book records the site as ‘A large, and extensive Iron Foundry, forming the east of a considerable portion of the Street - bounded on the South by St. Lawrence Street, and extending Eastward as far as Hutchieson Close. The buildings are of varied character, Some of them are built of Stone, And others brick, Slated & tiled, varying from 1 to 3 Storeys high, There are attached to these buildings three brick chimneys 80, 100, And 120 feet besides two others of Minor importance. The Glasgow, Paisley and Greenock Railway passes through the southern extremity of these premises, And for a division between the Boiler Shed [and] the Foundry, but in connection with Whole, These buildings are the property of Caird & Co: [Company] and the average of men employed Amounts to [---] of 500.’

The site was bought by Kincaid’s in 1919 and modernised for the production of steam engines and boilers. It is recorded as an ‘Engine Works’ on the 4th edition of the OS 25-inch map (Renfrewshire 1938, Sheet 002.06). In the post-World War Two period the Arthur Street premises housed a new Apprentices’ Training School (from 1949) and a large new building was constructed in 1953 which was to house a new fabrication department (Kincaid Centenary Booklet, 1968). The foundry complex was demolished about 2000 and the site has since been redeveloped.

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

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