Wilsontown Ironworks

The ruins of the Wilsontown Ironworks are located near the village of Forth in Lanarkshire in Scotland, approximately 23 miles (37 km) to the south east of Glasgow.

The ironworks were located on a level area on the floor of the valley of the Mouse Water[1] (a tributary of the River Clyde), also called the Cleugh burn, standing on both sides of the stream.

[2] : 152–3 The works were founded by the brothers Robert, John and William Wilson in 1779, but they were not a united family, being beset by quarrels and litigation.

Donnachie and Butt, scholars who studied the Wilson litigation records, also found thatThere were ten "fineries" for the production of "blooms," kilns for calcining iron and limestone, coke ovens, a foundry with air furnaces and cupolas.

There was a lime kiln, a brick-mill, banks of coke, coal, and ironstone, a wright's shop, engine houses for several blowing engines-at first Newcomen-type, but later replaced by more up-to-date Boulton and Watts.

It was sold for a modest sum to William Dixon of Govan Colliery and Calder Ironworks.

It was at Wilsontown that raw pit coal was first successfully used to fuel a blast furnace, with enormous savings of coke; it has been described as "the making of the iron trade in Scotland" and "one of the grandest epochs in the history of the iron manufacture".

[3]: 34  However, a great virtue of the hot blast process was that it made it possible to use raw coal instead of coke, and this was discovered at Wilsontown, probably by Dixon's manager John Condie.

The buildings were cleared after closure, but the general layout of the site can still be discerned and a heritage trail has been created.