Inverness, Rose Street, Rose Street Foundry
Foundry (19th Century)
Site Name Inverness, Rose Street, Rose Street Foundry
Classification Foundry (19th Century)
Alternative Name(s) A.i. Welders; Academy Street
Canmore ID 96749
Site Number NH64NE 211
NGR NH 66597 45584
NGR Description NH 6659 4558 and NH 6656 4564
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/96749
- Council Highland
- Parish Inverness And Bona
- Former Region Highland
- Former District Inverness
- Former County Inverness-shire
NH64NE 211.00 6659 4558 and 6656 4564
NH64NE 211.01 NH 66559 45560 offices (96-104 Academy Street)
Buildings, Rose Street Foundry
Architects: Ross & Macbeth (I.C. July 27, 1888)
Rose Street Foundry
Architects: Ross & Macbeth (I.C. March 11, 1887) Additions and alterations
(Undated) information in NMRS.
(Location cited as NH 665 547). Rose Street Foundry, mid to late 19th century. The main block of engineering shops is rubble built, with three gables to the street, each with an elliptically arched doorway and a semicircular window. The offices are in a 2-storey and attic, 7-bay, block and acrowss the street are more, much altered, workshops.
J R Hume 1977.
Publication Account (1986)
This late example is included to represent the countless smaller foundries once active in virtually every town and city in Scotland for serving the engineering trade, not withstanding Glasgow's pre-eminence. Built in 1895, it was an extension of the Northern Implement Foundry Company, which was established in March 1872, with a labour force of twenty, to manufacture agricultural implements. The firm then rapidly expanded under the name of the Rose Street Engineering Foundry Company to meet the demands of the Highland Railway for rail- and locomotive-castings and for bridges. Subsequently, during the two World Wars, it became famous alike for the production of marine engines and boom-defence equipment, and for its specialised welding-techniques. Planned on an irregular site averaging 190 ft (58m) by 95 ft (29m) in area and covered with timber roofs, it consists of a 30 ft-wide (9.14m) central machine-hall equipped with gantry, and a gallery of similar width enclosing it on three sides with the upper storey supported at mid-span by a row of circular cast-iron columns. According to the design drawings, endorsed by Inverness architects Ross and MacBeth and dated 1894, the three-arched and gabled stone frontage, as built, was modified to contain a semicircular window in each of the gables. Internally, the main point of structural interest is the rejection of the conventional monolithic stanchion in favour of a U-section casting, built up in two stages-although with the modest overall height of 21 ft (6.40m). They are bolted together at the head of the stouter 8 ft-high (2.44m) lower section by means of an intervening sleeve-casting through which runs a rolled steel stiffening beam.
Information from ‘Monuments of Industry: An Illustrated Historical Record’, (1986).
