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Inveraray, Gasworks

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

Site Name Inveraray, Gasworks

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

Canmore ID 23351

Site Number NN00NE 16

NGR NN 0947 0830

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/23351

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
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Administrative Areas

  • Council Argyll And Bute
  • Parish Inveraray
  • Former Region Strathclyde
  • Former District Argyll And Bute
  • Former County Argyll

Architecture Notes

NMRS REFERENCE:

Inveraray Gas Works was dismantled and sold for scrap in 1970.

(Undated) information in NMRS: Demolitions catalogue.

Activities

Publication Account (1986)

At the date of its closure in 1964 this small gasworks preserved much of its early layout, plant and character. It was established in 1841 by the 7th Duke of Argyll to serve the burgh of Inveraray, and continued to produce coal gas by original processes until converted to a more efficient exhauster gas system in 1949. The retort-house stood against the N boundary-wall flanked by the coal-shed and purifier-house; its SE wall had been extended some 8 ft (2.44m) farther out, and the bench incorporated a hydraulic main and three hand-fired retorts' that required periodic renewal. The chimney stood in its original position in the N corner, and the roof of the retort-house was of a fireproof type-the roof-trusses and battens being of iron, and the slates affixed to the battens with copper wire. In the original arrangement, gas was introduced into the purifier-house directly after being cooled in the bank of condensers, and the purifier-house still retained a number of original fittings, including two lime-purifiers and a tar box. In the later system an exhauster-engine placed in the engine-house drew the gas from the condensers and fed it back under pressure to the scrubber and washer in the purifier-house, and thence through the purifiers. The two gasholders were original installations, although gasholder no. 2 had been partly rebuilt. Each measured 20ft (6.10m) in diameter and had columnar posts with pulley-wheels at their heads, originally designed to receive the controlling counterpoise weights.

Information from ‘Monuments of Industry: An Illustrated Historical Record’, (1986).

Field Visit (April 1989)

SOUTH MAIN STREET, WEST SIDE

Arkland. This block of five 'Great Houses' was built to Robert Mylne's designs by the mason John Marr in 1774-5 to house tenants from the Old Town (en.17). It measures 57.6m by 9.6m over all and is of three storeys. The division into five 'houses', each of three bays, is evident in the window-spacing and in the massive chimney-stacks with moulded copings that surmount the flue-bearing dividing-walls. The E elevation is, however, uniform in level, despite the natural slope of over 1.2m to the S, and the doorway at that end of the block is reached by stone steps. The door- and window dressings are of Dumbarton sandstone, slightly rounded at the arris and now painted black.

Each 'house' has a central doorway serving the ground floor, and access to the upper floors is by an external stone stair at the rear, into a rectangular hip-roofed projection containing a lobby and sculleries (en.18*). An internal timber stair of double quarter-turn plan, now replaced, led to the second floor. The ground floors each comprised two dwellings, and a central dividing-corridor is still identifiable in the S house whereas the others, some now converted into shops, had shared entrance-lobbies at front and rear. The first and second floors of each house formed single dwellings having four rooms of approximately equal size and a smaller central one at the front. Few early features are preserved, but on the first floor of the N house an elliptical timber arch opens from the SE room into the central one. A tall window in the N gable-wall at this level is probably an early 19th-centuryinsertion.

The W side of the lane at the rear of Arkland is occupied mainly by outhouses but includes an almost square two-storeyed building with a three-bay 11.6m frontage, known as Arkland II, which appears to be of early 19th-century date. It contains four rooms with fireplaces at each level including the garret, which was lit by skylights and by small windows in the gable-wall.

Black's Land. This house, with three-bay 11.3m frontage, was built about 1777 to continue the line of the side-walls of Arkland towards the obliquely-set property to the S. It is built at the same ground-level as the latter, but has slightly taller windows and a higher wall-head.

Mackenzie's Land. This house, as built by Neil McCallum, the Argyll estate wright, in 1775, measured 14m from NE to SW by 7m and had a three-bay frontage with central doorway. Two additional doorways and a small ground-floor window were subsequently added, and the space of 4m between the NE gable and the S gable of Black's Land was filled by an addition of the same height, containing a ground-floor doorway to a pend, and a window at each level.

Cross Houses. This 1 1/2-storeyed range, running at right angles to the line of Main Street, was built in 1776-7 by the mason John Brown to house Argyll estate tenants. Its NE angle is placed close to the SW angle of Mackenzie's Land, and it extends W to the Avenue Wall, measuring 31.5m by5.3m. It is divided into three three-bay units facing S, each with a central doorway, and an additional single bay at the W end. The existing part-hipped roof is of late 19th-centurydate. Each unit contained two rooms divided by a lobby and a straight central loft stair, but some of these rooms were subdivided during the restoration of about 1958, and the ingle W bay was added to the adjacent house. In 1868 there were two wider and slightly shorter parallel ranges to the S, probably also built in 1776-7. Both are now incorporated in a garage, the N one as a shell and the other as a much-altered hip-roofed two-storeyed range (en.19*).

Gasworks (site). Immediately S of the range of buildings just described there is an almost triangular site divided into two yards, the N one now roofed over. The site retains several of the buildings of the Inveraray Gasworks, established by the Argyll estate in 1841, modernised in 1949 and closed in1964. At the latter date it retained much of its original plant, including two original gasholders in the S yard and a retort-house with fireproof roof in the SW angle of the N yard (en.20). The yards were divided by an angled L-plan range whose hip-roofed E limb, which presents a two-storeyed three-bay E front to South Main Street, was the works-attendant's house, while the W part was the purifier house. Some of the buildings may have been adapted from existing ones, and parts of the site were occupied in 1841 by the 'old brewery' and the 'f1eshmarket’ (en.21). A small group of sheds, including a19th-century smithy which remains in use, occupies the triangle S of the gasworks, bounded by the Avenue Wall on the wand the road on the E.

RCAHMS 1992, visited c. April 1989

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