Caledonian Pottery excavations, Rutherglen

Image: © A-M-Jervis Taken: 20 Oct 2007

During 2007, in advance of the forthcoming destructive passage of the M74 motorway extension, an archaeological consortium was busy uncovering historical evidence of the previous use of land in Rutherglen and at other sites across the south of Glasgow. This was the former Caledonian Pottery in the angle between the main Glasgow - Carlisle railway and Farmeloan Road. The pottery was opened on this site between 1870 and 1872 and made a wide ranger of products, including teapots, bowls and stoneware jugs. In 1898 it was bought by jam-makers W.P.Hartley to ensure a supply of stone jamjars but closed in 1928 when glass jars became common. The pottery was demolished and the ground level raised some four feet on concrete to support the Caledonian Steelworks, built on the site in 1930. This in turn closed in the early 1960s. The orange circles in the foreground are the bases of kilns where the pottery was fired, the white square to their left being the foundation of a chimney to take away the hot fumes from the firing. The square plinths beyond them are part of the foundations of the later steelworks, some still sprouting cut-off girders. The white area to the left of the orange barriers was the potters' workshop in which the jars, etc. were moulded from clay. In the bottom corner was the exit road from the pottery yard, the stone slabs at right-angles to the setts being arranged to give a smooth passage for cart-wheels and ease the burden on the carthorses.

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