Description

John Gordon, architect; Simpson and Wilson, engineers; D Home Morton, Consulting Mech. Engineer, 1895.

Front: 1-storey 2-bay moulded brick with ashlar dressings. 2 wide bays each flanked by wide pilasters rising through parapet, each with basket arched openings, door to workshops at W; window fronting Tension Run at E, with 3 mullions, ornately carved, and transom with mythological beasts. Dentil cornice. Parapet.

Superintendents house: 2-storey 3-bay brick with ashlar dressings. Scrolled pedimented door with urn. Sash and case windows. Dentil cornice. Parapet. 4 tall stacks with vertical strips and stepped corbelled tops. Slate roof.

Rear (N to S): 2 long parallel buildings: W workshops (eg to splice cables); E-Tension Run, 193' long, 33' wide, now partitioned. Carriages ran up and down here to regulate the slack of the cables. Internal and external walls pilastered with a semi-circular window in every 2nd bay. Cast-iron stanchion at S end had pulley carrying cables from Engine Hall to Tension Run. Steel-tie roof. Engine Hall. Large

twin-gabled building with 2 semi-circular windows in N gables. S gables linked by parapet with windows and 1 has a semi-circular window. Side walls pilastered with large semi-circular multi-paned windows. Recessed panels over corbelled string course. Cornice. Modern roof.

Interior: 2 aisles divided by 4 cast-iron H-section stanchions carrying a steel beam support for travelling crane and steel trellice uprights. Side wall pilasters have rails for travelling crane with small pilasters above. Each aisle housed a steam engine and pulley drives. Tunnel leads underground.

Boiler House linked to Engine Hall through big arch.

Pedimented gable to S with semi-circular window over arched windows and pilasters cut by new wide entrance. Coal store and water tank to E are altered but cast-iron stanchions that carried the tank and some rails for coal wagons survive.

Interior: 1 wide aisle with pilastered and corbelled walls. Lower roof than Engine Hall.

Statement of Interest

The world's only cable-hauled underground passenger system was powered from here by 2 1500hp steam engines. Opened 1896, closed 1935 when line was converted to electric traction. Acquired by Howdens in 1940. Now canteen, circulators and pattern shop. Traces of pulley bearings and pumps underground. Listing excludes 1940 addition E of Tension Run.

The architectural details were probably by Gordon's partner D Bennet Dobson.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17814471

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Listed Buildings, Conservation Areas and Monuments
• 
  Oxfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Sussex: West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Cumberland and Westmorland)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1967)
• 
  Renovating Old Houses: Bringing New Life to Vintage Homes (For Pros By Pros)
• 
  Surrey (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)