Description
Circa 1785-95. 2-and 3-storey to front elevation with additional exposed basement to rear, 30-bay, gabled terrace of mill workers' houses, one room deep, stepped twice downhill to accommodate falling ground from W to E. Random sandstone rubble with droved and stugged ashlar dressings; E gable harled. Regular fenestration. Symmetrical 3-bay units with timber-boarded doors flanked by windows, some with steps in W sections of terrace either ascending or descending by a 'cut' in the pavement to front doors. Cambered cobbled strip running length of terrace at rear with central drain.
12-pane glazing in timber sash and case windows. Ashlar-coped rubble stacks with small black cans. Slate roof.
INTERIOR: few original features remain following late 1970s renovation. Some chimney openings and details such as iron hook for cooking purposes on lower level; carved stone to architrave at no 6.
Statement of Special Interest
This impressive terrace is an important element in the mill and village complex and is situated on a prominent site. It is the first building, apart from the twin lodges at the upper end of New Lanark Road that is encountered on the way into the village. As with a number of the other buildings in the village, the main visual impact is made by the long row of repeated units and the colour and texture of the stone.
The housing provided for the workers in New Lanark is particularly important as it is not typical of social housing of the 18th century. Many planned settlements for the accommodation of workers sprang up in the age of improvement all over Scotland - for example, at Charlestown (Fife), Grantown-on-Spey, Newcastleton and Inveraray. Generally the buildings were low rise and arranged in a grid plan around formal squares focussed on public buildings. However because of the topography of the site at New Lanark this was not possible. Housing had to be higher rise and organised in long terraces. These stacked tenement-like structures prefigure the City Improvement scheme and other tenements which appeared in the cities in the second half of the 19th century. Later mill complexes however such as Stanley and Catrine used the more conventional grid of two-storey blocks.
In an insurance valuation of 1903 the terrace had 18 houses of two apartments, 18 of one apartment, cellarage and wash-houses in the basement. It was developed into 10 single terraced houses for restorer-purchasers, rather than Housing Association tenants, in 1975-80, mainly because of the single aspects of the two lower storeys.
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. The mill 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. 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.
Within World Heritage Site inscribed 2001.
List description updated 2010.