Location type

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Description

This iron works was located at the former mining village of Quarter, just to its north. The site of the furnaces has been built over in recent years. Portions of the partly landscaped remains of the mineral railways approaching the site remain.

This iron works built in 1856 for Colin Dunlop and Company with two blast furnaces for pig iron, opened in March 1857. A third furnace was added in 1867, fourth in 1869 and fifth in 1875.

With overproduction of iron the works became unprofitable, particularly when the local ironstone and limestone was worked out and both required to be hauled up the Hamilton and Strathaven Railway. Production was eased in the late 1879s and closure was in 1887. The associated coal mines of the Quarter Collieries remained open.

The layout was a bank of blast furnaces on a NW-SE alignment with the workshops and smithy (share with the colliery) to the south. It was served by its own private railway, Quarter Ironworks Railway, to the Quarter Collieries No 1 Pit and other pits, before the Hamilton and Strathaven Railway opened to Quarter in 1860.

A branch line from the Hamilton and Strathaven Railway approached from Quarter Iron Works Junction to the north west and close to the site the line divided. One fork swept to the west of the works with approach to the furnaces by reversal via a series of sidings. (This headshunt had been the western extreme of the private line.) The other fork also subdivided into a series of lines running down the east side of the furnaces.

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