When was ravenscraig demolished

A barrage of cuts scythed a workforce that was once 13, down to by the time it was announced in January, , that the plant would close.

The closure hit the area hard and the knock-on effect was said to be the loss of a further 10, jobs. Big plans were eventually announced, namely a new town, named after the steelworks, was to be built on acres. A college and state-of-the-art sports facility were the first initiatives to open and there is plenty more to come, including schools, hotels, parklands, houses, shopping and a new transport network. But for so many, the word Ravenscraig will forever recall an image of those blue gasometers dominating the local skyline.

Get a weekly round-up of stories from The Sunday Post:. That was the reality of the new economy for many of those who had lost their jobs in I missed the plant, and I missed the people. In plants like that, there are a lot of Billy Connollys, a lot of comedians, and you miss them. Has Motherwell rebuilt itself after the closure of the plant? We are trying to find a new identity for the area.

The people of Motherwell can see improvements coming, and they will see it tangibly when the Ravenscraig site has buildings on it. Either they looked at me blankly or they used one word: "diversity". But that is an economic definition; they had no notion of how the community now saw itself, what it believed in, how it cohered. A taxi-driver suggested a different defining word: "drugs".

The Reverend John Potter, chaplain at Ravenscraig from , summed up the sense of loss that many people still feel. The people at Ravenscraig had worked so hard to build up a modern bulk steel-making facility in the hope that they would have something to pass on to the next generation, and that hope was denied.

It needed managers, engineers and computer experts, but also drew on a large pool of semi-skilled workers, who were relatively well paid. Search this site.

In this section. Anti-natal Poker. Danger Round Every Corner. Ravenscraig: British Steel. The new site was surveyed in and a name suggested. Construction under way on Ravenscraig in the mids. The building on the left with seven chimneys is the melting shop of the Lanarkshire Steel Works. Spanning one square mile, the site consisted of coke ovens, a by-products plant, one blast furnace and an open hearth melting shop with three steel-making furnaces.

The coke ovens were lit on 3 June, , the blast furnace on 1 Aug after some preliminary heating , followed by the melting shop on 3 September of the same year. Production of an estimated , tons of steel per year had begun. Future expansions to the works would also include the fabrication of a semi-continuous Strip Mill completed in At its peak, Ravenscraig employed around workers and was one of the largest steelworks in Western Europe.

My Gran and Aunt lived in Meadowhead Road behind the huge blue towers. I worked as a student in the Craig in the summer of Aerial photograph of a general view of Ravenscraig Steelworks, and surrounding area, including Anderson Boyes, Craigneuk Street, Motherwell from south. The sag tipping, processing and storage areas sit to the north top. Scanned image of photograph of cooling towers and gas holders from NW at the scrap preparation area.

Here we see the three cooling towers and the larger of the two gas holders, together with the engineering services building on the left and the power station bottom of the frame.. Motherwell, Ravescraig Steelworks, Interior View of open-hearth shop showing ingot moulds on trolleys.

Copy of plan. Ravenscraig Works Revised including scale. Ravenscraig Steel Works was built by Colvilles Ltd to meet post-war demand for strip steel.

Molten iron was transferred from blast furnaces to steel furnaces, producing ingots that were then rolled into strips. The plant operated until its closure in the s, and its distinctive cooling towers and gas-holders were demolished in Before its closure in , Ravenscraig was an integrated iron and steelworks situated on a 1, acre site, with a liquid steel capacity of up to 2 million tonnes per annum.

Built on a greenfield location in , the plant underwent steady development over the following three decades, increasinly orientate towards specialised, high-quality steel-production. Some of the vast physcial remains of the works still survive, awaiting disposal or clearance. Skip to main content. Login Register. Background Colour Default Contrast. Close Reset. Motherwell, Ravenscraig Steelworks.

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