Going through old stuff while updating this website, I realised that I’d completely forgotten to do a report on a couple of Inverkip visits.
A couple of night shots:
1 George Square
Built in 1878, the A-listed Glasgow Central Post Office was the city’s postal headquarters until 1995; in 1999, it was bought by Stefan King’s G1 leisure group with plans to turn it into a 5-star hotel, but this fell through, and it was sold again in 2005 to partners AWG and HF Developments, for conversion into office space.
Conversion is now almost complete – the facade has been retained, with a new interior built and a new steel cupola. At present, though, and for the past 8 years, it has been a giant billboard:
Bridgeton Tunnels
Two disused railway lines terminate at Bridgeton Cross in Glasgow’s East End. In 1892, the North British Railway built a new branch line from their Queen Street station to new stations at Gallowgate Central and Bridgeton Central. A year later, the Glasgow & South Western Railway built a short line to join this branch to their St. Enoch terminus. This line was closed in 1979 – it’s made up of several short tunnels and cuttings.
IBM Greenock
IBM built it’s first factory in Spango Valley, Greenock, in 1951; initially making typewriters, printers and other office equipment, the factory began making PCs in 1981. As production of these shfted overseas, IBM Greenock shifted to making servers and laptops.
IBM sold much of it’s hardware manufacturing to Lenovo and Sanmina, who ran the plant in Greenock until 2006 before pulling out and shifting production to Hungary. 2000 IBM employees still work at IBM Greenock, mostly in a call centre, but the huge manufacturing halls stand empty.
This site is absolutely huge – several football-pitch-sized halls, some on top of each other, linked by enormous corridors and 4.5km of conveyors. I walked over a kilometre end to end – much further with all the diversions. It felt strangely familiar – a long time ago, I was a mainframe systems programmer for IBM…
One production hall:
Broomhill Hospital
This little hospital near Glasgow cared for chronically ill patients from 1876 to it’s closure in 1995. The condition is now ruinous – you have to be very careful as the floors are falling in all over the place.
It was once a very elegant building:
A Scottish Hospital
Caldwell’s Paper Mill
Caldwells Paper Mill was built in 1914 in Inverkeithing, just North of the Forth – initially it had four machines, but a fifth was added in 1928. From 1928 until 2002, Caldwells Mill was owned by the Inveresk Paper Company, who at their peak owned 8 other paper mills, but by the 1990s were struggling. Caldwells was taken over by Swedish company Klippan who had a rescue plan, but a slump in the price of paper put paid to that, and the mill closed in 2003 with the loss of 150 jobs – the equipment was returned to Inveresk.
Inverkip Power Station Part III
I hate leaving loose ends, so the blurry through-the-glass shot of the control room I got last visit really wasn’t good enough. So, when some other people wanted to make an early-morning visit, how could I resist?
The control desks are absolutely mint:
