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Summary

Description

1792-3; restoration and internal alterations Ian G Lindsay, 1966. 2-storey (3 to W), 12-bay gabled terrace of mill workers' houses on sloping ground. Random rubble with droved and stugged ashlar dressings; gables harled. Regular fenestration except ground floor of W elevation. Four symmetrical 3-bay units to NE elevation with stone steps to central timber-boarded doors flanked by windows.

Predominantly 12-pane glazing in timber sash and case windows. Ashlar-coped gablehead and ridge stacks with short black clay cans. Ashlar-coped skews. Grey slates. Granite sets in pavement to E elevation.

FORMER ABATTOIR: early 19th century. Single-storey, roughly square-plan detached former abattoir to E with roof ventilator. Later used as wash-house with water closets; now garages.

Statement of Special Interest

9-16 Caithness Row, though detached, continues in a line with the counting house and 1-8 Caithness Row. Like most other New Lanark buildings it is simple but well-proportioned. It is important architecturally and historically as a component of the New Lanark complex.

The story of Caithness Row began in 1791 when the emigrant ship 'Fortune', bound from the Isle of Skye for Maryland in America, was dismasted in stormy weather and forced to port at Greenock. David Dale offered the would-be emigrants housing and employment, and to prevent further emigration, pledged to build houses in New Lanark for 200 families. Caithness Row was completed in 1793 and by tradition was named by Highland immigrant villagers after their homeland.

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 both 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.

Restored as tenancies for the Housing Association, 1966-68.

Within World Heritage Site inscribed 2001.

List description updated 2010.

References

Bibliography

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