I last visited Diageo’s historic Port Dundas distillery back in July, a couple of months after it closed. With nothing better to do on a winter’s night, I thought I’d head back for another look to see if anything had changed. Apart from more lights being turned off (which was a bit of a pain) nothing much – but it was a good excuse to get some more pictures of grimy industrial goodness 😉
This was a by-invitation visit to take pictures for training and PR use, but it’s something you don’t get to see every day. This is actually two steelworks on two separate sites, but they work closely together – I’ll describe things in the order of how steel passes through the processes.
Site 1: The first stage is to unload the raw slabs of steel – these come by rail, 30 tons or so each, 10-15m long and 9-12″ thick.
Exploring disused manufacturing can sometimes be a bit depressing – all that decay, all those jobs that no longer exist, all that busy industry that has gone. So, when I worked out how to get into this large Scottish engineering company on two nights, it was a wonderful change to see a factory that’s still thriving and making things.
Back again for another look, and to cover the bits I missed. First, the barrel storage building, with a bunch of interesting conveyors to move the barrels about:
It’s funny, isn’t it – when Diageo announced that they would be closing the historic Port Dundas distillery in Glasgow, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth, marches through the streets protesting about the job losses, and questions in parliament. However, like most explorers, my first thought was “that one is going on the list”.
It’s been, ooh, 15 minutes since I last did a report on this place 🙂 Sadly, it now looks as if this place doesn’t have much longer…
Firstly the WWII-era Cordite press houses – this part is very torn up, looks like for buried electrical cable and scrap, very smashed up but still some lovely details left, like this Tangye press:
It’s hard to know what to call this site, as it’s had so many names. The company of James Kilpatrick & Son was formed by master plumber James Stevenson Kilpatrick of Paisley, and it was when his son John got involved that the company became involved with electrical installation. They started off with installations in private houses (only the poshest houses had electric power at the time), and moved into armature winding and other heavier electrical work. Continue reading
Temple Gasworks was built in 1871 for the Partick, Hillhead and Maryhill Gas Company, and when Glasgow Corporation decided to centralise gas supply it was bought by the city in 1891. The rest of the gasworks, and the linked Dalsholm gasworks, are now gone, but these two lovely three-lift gasholders remain. They’ve not moved for years, but they’re still kept as backups. Continue reading
I just can’t keep away from this place – this was another quick revisit to poke about the labs again, and find yet more plans – plus, in a drawer in a darkroom, some glass slides of ICI workers.
