The Blantyre Industrial Estate at High Blantyre looks a little different lately as contractors complete the remaining cladding, tidying up the aesthetics of the existing units. However, it was the installation of this prominent “clocktower” at Block 7 which has given the estate a new look.
The estate built in the mid 1940’s has seen many changes over the decades and hundreds of businesses come and go. Today, the units are once again well occupied and it’s good to see some investment has gone into making most of the units attractive for rental for both large and small businesses.
Ugh!! that’s the first thing that came to my head when I read of Eric’s description of a factory unit and imagining all the pollution coming from the melting down and the poor people who had to work in there! As for the clock tower, a lovely old fashioned? clock on a very “mine craft” post modern tower, I guess it’s better than a run down old place?
i used to visit a factory unit called ACTID in 1960-65. Dreadful place. They had large tanks of sulfuric acid which were used to make electrolytic 99.999% pure copper in big sheets and Nickle Sulfate. which was dried on shelving and packed into large card board bags. Copper powders a separate company were next door doing something similar. Basically they bought scrap cupro/nickle/iron wire from Phillips Hamilton. Melted it in a sklenar furnace into slabs.The slabs were put into large acid filled tanks and a low voltage electric current passed through to make electro plated 99.999% pure copper. I it was run by Czech people and had about 5 employees! The estates people were always complaining about the acid rotting the floor and steel beams plus the fumes! You had to walk on wooden duckboards to avoid the pools of acid!