Not so much a case of there being nothing to see here, as there being (almost) no way of getting here. Vallay House lies abandoned on a tiny island off an island off the far northwest of Scotland, only accessible by land at particular times when the tide recedes. It is a rather eerie experience stepping out across somewhere that the sea has just momentarily revealed, knowing that it’ll eventually come back.

This wasn’t helped by a local telling me the ominous sounding tale of a woman who was making her away across the sands to Vallay Island one day when the mists descended. She apparently wandered round and round in circles, unable to make her way back to the shore, getting more and more lost until the tides crept back and she was drowned.

Vallay House was the creation of Erskine Beveridge, the head of a successful linen company based in the town of Dunfermline in Fife in the nineteenth century. Beveridge was known as not only an industrialist but an antiquarian with a passion for photography. Armed with his tripod and weighty box camera, he wandered Scotland recording the country’s landscapes and buildings, documenting its vanishing edges.

Beveridge was particularly enamoured with North Uist and visited here on holiday many times. Then around 1901-02, he commissioned the building of Vallay House to provide a more permanent base for his trips to the edge of the world. After Beveridge’s death in 1920, his son George inherited the house. Living alone here obviously got to George, as he turned to the drink, selling off the family silver in order to fund his habit. Tragedy struck in 1944 when George, undoubtedly after a few too many bevvies, drowned whilst attempting to cross one of the island’s causeways.

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Posted by Rosalyn on November 16, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (3)

Lying amidst piles of rubble and high metal fencing in the Fountainbridge area of Edinburgh stands the former Fountain Brewery. A site of pilgrimage surely for all lovers of cheap lager.

The brewery was once part of the McEwan drinking empire, founded by William McEwan (1827-1913) in 1856 with money borrowed from his family. Fountainbridge was a prime location with its excellent transport links provided by the railway and Union Canal (which still runs alongside the site and provides a nice urban amble). McEwan soon established a presence in the Scottish market, before setting his sights on colonial trade. By the turn of the 20th century, a gentleman could enjoy a pint of McEwans as far and wide as Australia, South Africa or India.

The company merged with William Younger & Co Ltd to form Scottish Brewers Ltd in 1931, before that company merged with Newcastle Breweries Ltd in 1960 to form Scottish & Newcastle Breweries Ltd. This led to a thorough updating of the plant and S&N opened a new Fountain Brewery at Fountainbridge on a 22 acre site beside the Union Canal in 1973, much of which forms the remaining site today.

At its peak, the brewery produced about two million barrels per year of well-known brands such as McEwans Export, Tartan Special, Kestrel Lager, Gillespies Stout and Youngers. Quality brands. But despite the always willing domestic market for such produce, the Fountain Brewery was closed by S&N at the end of 2004 due to the fierce competition of the beer market. About 170 workers lost their jobs.

Despite this, the future of the site looks set to flourish. The Fountain North development plan has been dreamed up to remake the area into offices, housing, retail outlets and a new public park. It aims to become Edinburgh's largest regeneration site, incorporating all sorts of contemporary environmental concerns such as tree-lined boulevards, green space, pedestrian and cycle routes, family housing and underground car parking.

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Posted by Rosalyn on May 11, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Less a tourist attraction than a remnant of faded industrial glory, Crofthead Mill once housed an important cotton-spinning factory. Located on the banks of the River Levern in East Renfrewshire, the mill is the remaining legacy of the textile industry that used to dominate the area.

The current building rose in the early 1880s from the ashes of a disastrous fire which burned down the original mill erected by Stewart, Orr & Co in 1792. Not all of the mill’s structures have survived to the present day though - the five-storey edifice of the spool-turning department was demolished in 1968.

Crofthead was once the biggest producer of spun cotton in the county and its ownership passed through a series of successful companies. Thread from here was traded across the world. One of the more bizarre claims to fame of their products is that thread from Crofthead held together the boots of those on the British Everest Expedition in 1975…clearly it was tough stuff.

The mill attracted thousands of workers to Neilston in the 1900s, with many travelling to find work here after the closure of mills in Glasgow, as well as journeying from northern England, Ireland or the Highlands. Living and working conditions were considered good at Crofthead, and the Mill’s management even built around 400 homes for their workers. If you take a gander around the nearby town (only a short walk away, albeit up the rather steep Holehouse Brae), you can see these dinky millhouses dotted around Neilston, still providing cosy dwellings for the locals.

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Posted by Rosalyn on November 07, 2007 | Permalink