Description
1851, with new Engine House 1890 by C and L Ower. 3-storey
and attic front with 3 power-loom sheds at 1st floor level
on rising ground to rear. Coursed rubble with ashlar quoins
and dressings. N front: 3-storey and attic 19-bay block
with advanced quoined 3-bay sections at each end. Ground
floor centre bay a wide door altered to a window, end
bays stair doors, and 3 sliding doors (circa 1890). 1st
floor 2 bays at W end held gangway and drive shaft from
engine in calender (now car park), blocked 1890. Cornice,
slate roof with skylights. E elevation 3-storey 4-bays
with ground floor door and 1st floor roll-moulded band
course. Cornice below gablehead 2 windows and 3 oculi in
gable with skewputts and flat-topped finials. 8-bay
symmetrical front to 3 sheds at 1st floor; end bays
tripartite, quoined and advanced on a roll moulded band
course. Cornice, parapet.
Forest Park Place elevation plain, with 2 loading bays
and others blocked. Slate shed roofs. W elevation of
3-storey and attic front similar to E elevation with
adjoining rope alley fronted by 3-storey 1-bay gabled
block added 1890 in simiar style to original building.
Large 1890 Engine House with W window under iron cill,
lower part obscured by modern brick wall. Stair removed.
Piended roof with clerestory window. Most windows are
wooden-framed top hoppers, 1890, but 1 is 1851 multi-paned
sash and case.
Interior: Ground floor mechanics shop, (batching from
1890) brick arches on 2 rows of cast-iron columns, one
bracketted for shafts running N under powerloom sheds.
3 rows of cast-iron boxes in the arches carried belt drives
to 1st floor looms (an unusual feature in a multi-storey
building).
1st floor: 2 rows of cast-iron columns with brick arches
and a row of stout columns with Doric capitals supporting
a cast-iron beam and the S wall of N block.
3 power-loom sheds with wide-span double-pitched king-post
roofs on 2 rows of cast-iron columns. Small 1890 addition
at SW. Second Floor: 2 rows of cast-iron columns and brick
arches. Attic: wide-span wrought-iron ties with no
intervening columns, used for winding and warping. Stone
flagged floor, lift shaft and spiral stair at each end.
Engine House, 1890, C and L Ower, with a later boardroom
built inside it and brick partition form wheelpit and rope
race. Green and white glazed tiles to dado, plastered above
with large plaster cornice. Superb timber roof of tie-beams
with pendant bosses and dark herring-bone panels. Wheelpit
with large bearing for fly-wheel, and rope alley stepped
upwards to S with underfloor shafts leading off, rising
to a 3-storey front at W end of N block. Heavy masonry
basement for engine with tunnels and pump.
Statement of Special Interest
The only factory in Dundee to weave fine linen damasks by power
loom.
Now the oldest and biggest complete pre-1860s power loom linen
and jute weaving factory in Dundee. Owned by A and D Edward of
Logie Works, and later by J Sharp of Miln St and Bower Mills,
who converted it to spinning. One of the 1st 3 iron-framed
buildings in Dundee to have an iron roof. The wrought-iron ties
have the same pattern as in Tay Works and Saltaire, Bradford,
both 1851 and the latter, by W Fairbairn, thought to be very
advanced. The iron colonnade carrying a wall is an early example
of a type to be repeated in later mills. The wide spans of the
weaving sheds were made possible by underfloor shafting. The
boxes in the arched ceiling of the ground floor give an unusually
good view of the machine layout.
List excludes modern brick boilerhouse at NW.