Our History - The Scottish Ironwork Foundation is a registered charity which promotes historic architectural ironwork ma...
Our History - The Scottish Ironwork Foundation is a registered charity which promotes historic architectural ironwork made or found in Scotland.
Scotland has lost a great deal of its industrial heritage - entire industries have been wiped away without any physical trace.
With the establishment of Carron in 1759, the light castings industry boomed and developed into the mid-19th Century to a point where Scotland was a global player inthe sector, its goods highly prized and names like the Saracen Foundry of Walter Macfarlane and Co, Mcdowall Steven’s Milton Ironworks, the Sun Foundry of George Smith and Co, David King and Sons, Mackenzie Moncur and the Lion Foundry of Kirkintilloch, became global brands. The collapse of the industry after WW2 led to these former glories being forgotten, buildings demolished, patterns destroyed, thousands of hours in design and drawing lost or even worse burned.
A slim thread of knowledge persisted amongst a few enthusiasts and this grew in the 1990’s as urban renewal projects and parks started to have their features restored or even replaced. The survival of company archival information is incredibly poor - for some firms all we have left are structures themselves, or if we are very lucky a trade catalogue. The market was global and some firms seemed to have delivered little work at home. What is most exciting is that when we think we have found everything whether it be archival or structures, out of the blue will come an email from Brasil or South Africa saying ‘we have found a small diamond mark on the ironwork that looks like it says ‘Glasgow’ - then we are off on another adventure...
The scale and reach of Scotland's influence in the manufacture and export of architectural ironwork is only starting to be fully understood. Hundreds of firms exported everything from railings to fountains, lampposts to railway stations, gutters to cast iron palaces.
Who We Are - The Scottish Ironwork Foundation came into being in 2002 as the result of a Millenium Fellowship grant to study Scottish Architectural Ironwork. We realised quickly that whilst some of us had been studying the subject for some years, the profile and understanding of what Scotland had contributed globally to this industry was not well understood.
We set out to change that and six Trustees built a database of Scottish iron structures across the world, reaching just under four thousand items. The site grew and became the place to consult for information on this remarkable industry.
Sadly our site was hacked in 2012, but thanks to a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund in December 2013 we have been able to commission a new website and searchable database.
If you know of any examples of Scottish ironwork near you please get in touch! You can email us at david@scottishironwork.org.
What we do
We record, research and make publically available ironwork made or found in Scotland on our database. We take public contributions, help provide advice on identification of structures and provide additional information. We collect information relating to the firms undertaking this type of work in Scotland and undertake research projects to add to the corpus of knowledge.
We will provide advice to public and private bodies where we are able. We have the best collective archive of trade catalogues for these firms in the world, and an extensive knowledge base that supports our activities. We share this information primarily via this website but also through publications, seminars, conferences and the general press. We will sometimes get involved in rescuing objects or structures where it falls within our remit.
We can undertake research and provide archival information to support conservation and restoration projects on a fee basis to support our charitable purpose - please get in touch.
