There's something about old industrial machinery that is just fascinating!
These wonderful old machines can be found at the Scottish Maritime Museum in Irvine, but a notice informs that they were once in use at the Gourock Ropeworks in Port Glasgow.
Such an interesting set of machinery - it's difficult to imagine how noisy and probably dangerous all this would have been when operational.
The Gourock Ropeworks building is still standing in Port Glasgow and has been converted into apartments.
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| Former Gourock Ropeworks Building, Port Glasgow |
This wonderful illustration is from a mural at the Maritime Museum.
It was great to see some rope-making machinery that came from a local works ... even if I did have to travel to Irvine in Ayrshire to view it!
For other posts about Ropeworking in Port Glasgow -
The Port Glasgow Rope and Duck Company tells about the Glasgow Tobacco Lords who started ropemaking in Port Glasgow
Port Glasgow and Mayflower II tells of how ropes from Gourock Ropeworks were used on a replica of the Mayflower in 1957
Wow, that's a fancy machine. I have watched a demonstration of ropemaking using a fairly simple device. I think it involved a wheel and a special spool, plus a lot of patience.
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