New Buildings, New Lanark Road, New Lanark, Lanark, South Lanarkshire

Description

1798; alterations circa 1800; restored from 1978. 4 storey (3 to NE due to sloping site), 13-bay, classical Palazzo-style gabled terrace of mill workers' tenements with slightly advanced end bays and pedimented central 3 bays surmounted by colonnaded bellcote. Later 4-storey, 6-bay terrace adjoining NW gable. Sandstone rubble with droved and stugged ashlar dressings. Eaves course; blocking course to outer bays. Long and short quoins. Regular fenestration with tabbed margins.

SW (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: two steps to central timber-panelled main door with sidelights in pilastered architrave; segmental pediment above containing plaque (originally a clock). Oval oculus to gable pediment. Bellcote with rusticated plinth and paired unfluted columns supporting lead dome and weathervane; bell dated 1786. Further doorways with timber boarded doors; steps up to those to right, accommodating falling ground. Later section of terrace to W stepped back with doors at ground level.

12-pane glazing in timber and sash case windows. Coped ridge stacks with small black cans. Ashlar-coped skews. Grey slate roof. Small roof lights. Cast-iron rainwater goods.

Statement of Interest

New Buildings are of considerable visual and historical importance as they were the first buildings in New Lanark to be given classical details and were treated as a unified Palazzo-style block during the 1800 alterations. They are situated in a prominent position at the entrance to the village and are an elegant component of the mill village.

In the mid-1780s there were single storey cottages on this site but these were replaced by a large block of tenements, two rooms in depth and were initially used as workers' houses. The building was extended circa 1800 by Robert Owen soon after his arrival in New Lanark to provide halls on the upper floors for Sunday school and Gaelic services, despite the fact that he denounced all forms of religion. These uses continued until 1898 when the church was built. It is possible that Robert Owen was responsible for the introduction of the classical details on this and other New Lanark buildings.

By 1903 the buildings contained a surgery, lavatory and doctor's house above, 18 2-apartment houses, 4 1-apartment houses; 2 of the halls on the upper storeys were empty. There were cellars on the ground floor.

The bellcote, which was originally on Mill No 1, was relocated here between 1825 and 1867, and was used to summon the workers to the mills.

New Lanark was a pioneering cotton-spinning village, which became a model for industrial communities that was to spread across the world in the 19th and 20th centuries and is recognised as being of outstanding importance historically and in visual terms because of its completeness and its physical form. Elements of sophisticated early town planning are evidenced in the orchestration of the various components in the village, from the mill weir, its lade and tunnel to south, to the tunnels and sluices leading off to the individual mills, the crucially generous circulation spaces, gardens, tailored walks and viewing points realised from the start. It is surrounded by an incomparable natural and designed landscape, the mill buildings sitting on the natural terrace to the east of the River Clyde in this deeply incised, wooded river valley.

Built to exploit the water power offered by the Falls of Clyde, the mills were in operation from 1786 to 1968. The mill village is made up of industrial, residential and community buildings, dating predominantly from between 1786 and the 1820s. It was founded by David Dale, a Glasgow merchant, in conjunction with Richard Arkwright, a trailblazing inventor of the cotton spinning industry whose patents enabled operation on a considerable scale. Dale's humane philosophy, realised from the start in the buildings of New Lanark, was expanded by Robert Owen, who took over management of the mill village in partnership from 1799. Under Owen the venture prospered and became one of the world's largest cotton mill centres in the world supporting 2500 people. Owen created an environment where child labour and corporal punishment were abolished, and provided workers with good homes, education and free health care as well as affordable food. He had a profound influence on social developments such as factory reform throughout the 19th century.

New Buildings were restored between 1978 and the early 1980s as tenancies for the Housing Association and to house the exhibition linked to the New Lanark Visitor Centre.

Within World Heritage Site inscribed 2001.

List description updated 2010.

External Links

Historic Environment Scotland Listing

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