Liberty Steel, Clydebridge Works
The Clydebridge Works opened in 1877. Originally, the works made steel sheared plates to build ships (among other uses). Plates from Clydebridge were used in many famous vessels such as the ocean liners of the Cunard Line: Queen Elizabeth, Queen Mary and QE2.
Steel manufacture at the site ended in 1978; the site had manufactured steel with an open-hearth furnace, the type of melting shops that British Steel wanted to discontinue. In the mid-1970s, it employed around 3,500. The plate mill at Clydebridge plate works rolled its last plate on 12 November 1982. An extension of the M74 motorway was built through the huge site which now sits next to the remaining buildings.
During 2016 the plant was mothballed before shortly being acquired by Liberty House Group from Longs Steel UK/Tata Steel with the aim of saving the site, keeping it open and maintaining job security. In late 2017, it appeared the future of the Clydebridge site was again uncertain when Liberty offered redundancy packages to its workforce, but a few months later, Liberty Group owner Sanjeev Gupta announced a further "£1bn investment in Scotland" under his Greensteel production strategy. It was news like this that left us scratching our heads about the status of the Scottish steelworks…
During February this year, we were visiting Scotland frequently to explore. While returning from a weekend up north on the M74, I was taking a harder look at the Clydebridge Works than usual. The massive blue structures are eye-catching whether you explore or not. I had always looked at it when passing but never really given it much thought. I thought a major news story would come round if anything were to happen to it. It so happened that the news had broken before I was interested in this sort of thing. As we followed the M74 round the steelworks, the site was quiet. Parts of the wall and roofing were starting to flap around in the wind and all in all it looked very shoddy. This inspired me to have a quick research on my phone as we drove away about the sites’ situation. The problem for us originally was determining whether or not the works was disused. The news articles that fill your search engine are ones about the deal involving Liberty and the idea to save the plant, but nothing indicated to it being out of action apart from one article stating that Jahama Estates (part of the GFG Alliance Group, who own Liberty House) confirmed plans to build a hotel on the eastern unusued ground at the works. Having found one pointer to it being closed, along with a passing scan of the external proving the fact it looked a little worse for wear (which is no surprise) we turned round with little day light to see how tough it would be to get onto the site to see for ourselves.
The left-over buildings are situated between a rail line and a major motorway meaning that there are limited access points, and you would imagine these would be easy to secure and monitor. As we arrived 7 months ago, we were met with total silence, not a single worker, no patrolling guards on foot or in cars and no new cameras or sensors. Just open main gates and some heras around the perimeter. The fencing was a positive sign as well as some boards on what appeared to be the admin block as we began to suss out the situation of the works. The external condition of a building isn’t exactly substantial ground to judge whether or not the building is in use anymore (especially when it comes to industrial sites like a steelworks) so the only way we could really tell was try and find an entry point.
It didn’t take long to find our way in. The main power was off inside the works as the light was fading. We had left our bags at the car due to the rapidly depleting daylight and we were still under the impression that the works may be in use. However for what we could see it was clearly not in operation. It looked as if it hadn’t been used for years. Pigeon shite and feathers were everywhere, the air was stale, there were piles of rubble on the floor and many smaller buildings/offices along the east internal wall were locked. We stuck to the east side to remain in cover while we confirmed our newfound suspicions and didn’t move out into the rest of the works. A dim orange light shone from the south end of the hall so the three of us headed toward it to gauge best what was occurring here. Nobody was around, but a small control room with a logbook had fortnightly signings. It was then apparent that the building was being kept in check for one reason or another. Production was surely not commencing anytime soon so another day in Glasgow was planned shortly after.
The speedy return never happened, and months passed knowing that the ease of the steelworks may be becoming more difficult day by day. We hadn’t seen any photos online which was positive and just hoped our presence previously went undetected. July arrived and so did me and @UrbandonedTeam back in Glasgow for a sun set explore of the steelworks. We planned to use the same route and hope nothing had changed which was doubtful. Upon parking we could see the huge palisade gate was shut and locked, blocking our original easy path toward the site. The fact this particular gate was now locked was both a win and a loss. We were happy to see that some sort of protection was being put in place reassuring us that the steelworks was disused, but it also meant we had to climb it… Once over the palisade, nothing had changed except more boards on the admin. Despite our best efforts the admin block was inaccessible, and we set our sights back toward the works.
First looks across the works in months.
Usually with a place like this there is zero time to relax, whether you’re inside or out. However Clydebridge was an usual change where we could happily wander every level without a care in the world. We spent the entire evening until dark inside with zero bother yet again. We were planning on holding onto the report for a while longer but with the lacking defences in place and a new post of the site on Facebook I thought it would be best to get a good report up for any who want to see it before it changes for the worse. There’s at least one armadillo inside… All above goes for the other site too I would imagine.
The Austenitising oven which heats the plates to over 900 degrees before being quenched with 100 bathtubs per second of tepid water after.
On top of the gantry crane.
The cabin.
Looking out over the huge works with Alistair for scale at the bottom.
Plate cutting machinery.
Toward the west side of the hall.
As we made our way down the works, we were looking for any interesting offices and control rooms. One of the bigger ground floor admin blocks:
Back outside looking back as the sun began to set.
There were numerous small control rooms that were all locked.
The rolling mill.
And its adjacent control room that was also locked.
More views over to the south end where production would have finished.
And looking back.
We eventually found the biggest control room responsible to load the steel that has arrived from Dalzell to into the ovens as seen above.
Accessing the control room wasn’t straightforward and while searching for an entry point found a fenced off area with old photos, and empty stands for visitors, workers, buyers, who knows.
The control room:
Modern as expected…
And that's it. Thanks for reading!
The Clydebridge Works opened in 1877. Originally, the works made steel sheared plates to build ships (among other uses). Plates from Clydebridge were used in many famous vessels such as the ocean liners of the Cunard Line: Queen Elizabeth, Queen Mary and QE2.
Steel manufacture at the site ended in 1978; the site had manufactured steel with an open-hearth furnace, the type of melting shops that British Steel wanted to discontinue. In the mid-1970s, it employed around 3,500. The plate mill at Clydebridge plate works rolled its last plate on 12 November 1982. An extension of the M74 motorway was built through the huge site which now sits next to the remaining buildings.
During 2016 the plant was mothballed before shortly being acquired by Liberty House Group from Longs Steel UK/Tata Steel with the aim of saving the site, keeping it open and maintaining job security. In late 2017, it appeared the future of the Clydebridge site was again uncertain when Liberty offered redundancy packages to its workforce, but a few months later, Liberty Group owner Sanjeev Gupta announced a further "£1bn investment in Scotland" under his Greensteel production strategy. It was news like this that left us scratching our heads about the status of the Scottish steelworks…
During February this year, we were visiting Scotland frequently to explore. While returning from a weekend up north on the M74, I was taking a harder look at the Clydebridge Works than usual. The massive blue structures are eye-catching whether you explore or not. I had always looked at it when passing but never really given it much thought. I thought a major news story would come round if anything were to happen to it. It so happened that the news had broken before I was interested in this sort of thing. As we followed the M74 round the steelworks, the site was quiet. Parts of the wall and roofing were starting to flap around in the wind and all in all it looked very shoddy. This inspired me to have a quick research on my phone as we drove away about the sites’ situation. The problem for us originally was determining whether or not the works was disused. The news articles that fill your search engine are ones about the deal involving Liberty and the idea to save the plant, but nothing indicated to it being out of action apart from one article stating that Jahama Estates (part of the GFG Alliance Group, who own Liberty House) confirmed plans to build a hotel on the eastern unusued ground at the works. Having found one pointer to it being closed, along with a passing scan of the external proving the fact it looked a little worse for wear (which is no surprise) we turned round with little day light to see how tough it would be to get onto the site to see for ourselves.
The left-over buildings are situated between a rail line and a major motorway meaning that there are limited access points, and you would imagine these would be easy to secure and monitor. As we arrived 7 months ago, we were met with total silence, not a single worker, no patrolling guards on foot or in cars and no new cameras or sensors. Just open main gates and some heras around the perimeter. The fencing was a positive sign as well as some boards on what appeared to be the admin block as we began to suss out the situation of the works. The external condition of a building isn’t exactly substantial ground to judge whether or not the building is in use anymore (especially when it comes to industrial sites like a steelworks) so the only way we could really tell was try and find an entry point.
It didn’t take long to find our way in. The main power was off inside the works as the light was fading. We had left our bags at the car due to the rapidly depleting daylight and we were still under the impression that the works may be in use. However for what we could see it was clearly not in operation. It looked as if it hadn’t been used for years. Pigeon shite and feathers were everywhere, the air was stale, there were piles of rubble on the floor and many smaller buildings/offices along the east internal wall were locked. We stuck to the east side to remain in cover while we confirmed our newfound suspicions and didn’t move out into the rest of the works. A dim orange light shone from the south end of the hall so the three of us headed toward it to gauge best what was occurring here. Nobody was around, but a small control room with a logbook had fortnightly signings. It was then apparent that the building was being kept in check for one reason or another. Production was surely not commencing anytime soon so another day in Glasgow was planned shortly after.
The speedy return never happened, and months passed knowing that the ease of the steelworks may be becoming more difficult day by day. We hadn’t seen any photos online which was positive and just hoped our presence previously went undetected. July arrived and so did me and @UrbandonedTeam back in Glasgow for a sun set explore of the steelworks. We planned to use the same route and hope nothing had changed which was doubtful. Upon parking we could see the huge palisade gate was shut and locked, blocking our original easy path toward the site. The fact this particular gate was now locked was both a win and a loss. We were happy to see that some sort of protection was being put in place reassuring us that the steelworks was disused, but it also meant we had to climb it… Once over the palisade, nothing had changed except more boards on the admin. Despite our best efforts the admin block was inaccessible, and we set our sights back toward the works.
First looks across the works in months.
Usually with a place like this there is zero time to relax, whether you’re inside or out. However Clydebridge was an usual change where we could happily wander every level without a care in the world. We spent the entire evening until dark inside with zero bother yet again. We were planning on holding onto the report for a while longer but with the lacking defences in place and a new post of the site on Facebook I thought it would be best to get a good report up for any who want to see it before it changes for the worse. There’s at least one armadillo inside… All above goes for the other site too I would imagine.
The Austenitising oven which heats the plates to over 900 degrees before being quenched with 100 bathtubs per second of tepid water after.
On top of the gantry crane.
The cabin.
Looking out over the huge works with Alistair for scale at the bottom.
Plate cutting machinery.
Toward the west side of the hall.
As we made our way down the works, we were looking for any interesting offices and control rooms. One of the bigger ground floor admin blocks:
Back outside looking back as the sun began to set.
There were numerous small control rooms that were all locked.
The rolling mill.
And its adjacent control room that was also locked.
More views over to the south end where production would have finished.
And looking back.
We eventually found the biggest control room responsible to load the steel that has arrived from Dalzell to into the ovens as seen above.
Accessing the control room wasn’t straightforward and while searching for an entry point found a fenced off area with old photos, and empty stands for visitors, workers, buyers, who knows.
The control room:
Modern as expected…
And that's it. Thanks for reading!
