ICI Ardeer - Nylon Plant

[Lucky Poet]

I must say well done too, Pyroninja. That was a pleasure to look through

[penguinmonkey]

Fantastic you can't beat a good big bang!!!

[BenCooper]

Sorry to steal your thunder from ICI Ben, I know you've done a lot on it but aye you're safe in the knowlege I can't touch you on Bishopton, it's all yours haha.

Oh no, I find both places really fascinating in different ways, and you've got some fantastic pictures from here - I'd suggest that other people look at Pyroninja's Flickr account, he has lots more!

Have you been to the Glasgow Uni archives? They've got lots of cool stuff about Ardeer, including a 1907 promotional book which is just gorgeous. RCAHMS also have lots of stuff. Being a commercial factory, there's been a lot of paperwork saved from Ardeer which makes research a lot easier.

I should do a report on here on Bishopton...

[Quality Mince]

What a great thread. I was born and bred in Stevenston and the Ardeer complex, particular the explosives part was always shrouded in secrecy. As a young boy, I recall hearing explosions fairly regularly. The Nylon Plant was a separate part of the complex. I used to be bussed to St Michael’s Academy in Kilwinning passing the Nylon Plant every day. I remember when the cooling tower decided to collapse and not even noticing it going to school that morning. Apparently, it developed a bulge during construction which was never sorted, and then it just collapsed. A bit embarrassing for the recently opened Auchenharvie Academy which had the cooling tower as part of its school badge..which remains to this day. That’s it on middle top!!

http://auchenharvieacademy.info/


Also, I got a job delivering frozen chips to the various canteens within the Ardeer site. The site was huge and I delivered to four canteens. I delivered to a fifth canteen in the Nylon Plant which was accessed via its own gate.

Africa House, one of the 1938 Bellahouston Park’s Empire Exhibition buildings was reconstructed at the entrance to Ardeer. This was the canteen for middle management. I always got a real nice bacon roll for my breakfast after I delivered my frozen chips!!

I love the photographs of this old industrial site.

[BenCooper]

Africa House is now a shell, sadly:

[Pyroninja]

Oh no, I find both places really fascinating in different ways, and you've got some fantastic pictures from here - I'd suggest that other people look at Pyroninja's Flickr account, he has lots more!

Have you been to the Glasgow Uni archives? They've got lots of cool stuff about Ardeer, including a 1907 promotional book which is just gorgeous. RCAHMS also have lots of stuff. Being a commercial factory, there's been a lot of paperwork saved from Ardeer which makes research a lot easier.

I should do a report on here on Bishopton...

I had no idea Glasgow Uni's archives held information on Ardeer at all, I do believe I shall be paying a visit next time I'm up in Glasgow...

[BenCooper]

Not as much as RCAHMS, but they do have the promotional book which RCAHMS don't. Check their website, though - I think they're closed until February for refurbishment...

[BenCooper]

Some other things that might be of interest from Ardeer - firstly, some slides from that storeroom Pyroninja photographed (portable lightboxes are a wonderful thing):















Next, some things in the black powder (gunpowder) section - these are incorporating mills:



And these are hydraulic presses for making press cake:





There's loads more in my Flickr set...

[Josef]

Some other things that might be of interest from Ardeer - firstly, some slides from that storeroom Pyroninja photographed (portable lightboxes are a wonderful thing):




[.....]

There's loads more in my Flickr set...

Eek!

[BenCooper]

Aye, that was a bit odd - it might be connected to this big plastic hand I found:

[Pyroninja]

Never seen this before!!! Those are some pretty nasty looking wounds, poor employees. If the dynamite wasn't turning you into a canary then you were getting your hands blown off...

[BenCooper]

They don't look like real hands to me - I think these, and the plastic hand, were for testing protective gloves or something like that.

There were some nasty incidents, though - have you read any of the accident reports?

[hungryjoe]

I live in Ardeer, and according to the locals, the plant was built after the Swedish Government threatened to close Nobel's plant down.

[BenCooper]

From what I've read, it was more to do with getting into the very lucrative British Empire market - the factor was based in Scotland partly because we were more relaxed about afety regulations around nitroglycerine and partly because some of the start-up funding came from Glasgow entrepreneurs. Several Swedish people did come over to start it up - the designer of the original factory, Mr Lindholm, stayed for years - but the smaller Nobel factory in Sweden stayed open.

[cell]

Nice little badge from Nobel's, could be a WW1 service badge but I'm not sure. I see they use Glasgow where their head office was rather than Ardeer.
Made by "PAISLEY'S Ltd GLASGOW" 17mm dia