Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Warehouse Wednesday: Newton Stewart tile works


OK, not a warehouse, but such an interesting picture it deserves an airing. Anyway, it's brick and stored clay products...

Also known as Carty Tileworks, this was a typical small rural tileworks, making clay drainage tiles for local markets. When built it probably shipped some of its produce to market, as there were the remains of a wood-piled quay beside the works. The view shows the single kiln in the centre, with the chimney which provided the draught for it.

Behind it are the single-storey wooden sheds in which the tiles were moulded and dried before being fired in the kiln. This was one of the last ceramic drainage tile works to operate in Scotland, as flexible plastic pipes were already taking over in the 1970s.

There is more detail and further view available from the Canmore website where I picked up the text above.

For modellers, the chimney could be bought (in 4mm scale) from Skytrex. Needless to say I can't find it on the website but I have a couple and they definitely came from there.

More interesting for me is the pile of pipes. The arrangement seems to be designed to stop the tubes rolling around with angled pipes at ninety degrees to the main stack. It would be fun to model although I think you'd need to lay them individually. No chance of using pasta for pipes as I recall a Blue Peter annual recommended!

Thanks to Duncan Young for pointing me at this and obtaining permission to publish.

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