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Mark Rustbucket @markrustbucket.bsky.social · 04/01/2026

Leith lamps are much more sinuous and elegant than Edinburgh's (here, Infirmary Street), which were supplied by McKenzie Brothers/ McKenzie and Moncur. Important indicators that differentiate location.

Electric lamp standard, early 20th century, on a cast iron octagonal column with horizontal bracket, and ornate spandrel with thistles etc, in front of a tree. Edinburgh Old Town.

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Mark Rustbucket @markrustbucket.bsky.social · 01/09/2025

Kiruna Church bell tower in cross-town traffic last Tuesday. Then 6,000 more residents discovered they too had to move. #TICCIH #Sweden #Kiruna

Relocation of the bell tower so that it can join the church moved the previous week in Kiruna, Swedish Lappland

Relocation of the bell tower so that it can join the church moved the previous week in Kiruna, Swedish Lappland. It has an onion domed roof over the bell chamber on a pyramidal base, all of timber made in the 1920s

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Mark Rustbucket @markrustbucket.bsky.social · 08/08/2025

Next stop, Puente Bizkaia, then Rochefort, then two in Germany, then Buenos Aires, Duluth, and you have the world set.

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Mark Rustbucket @markrustbucket.bsky.social · 08/08/2025

Kylesku bridge was connected on this day in 1984. Still beautiful, but the midges are fiercesome there. By Ove Arup, I think. Photo from scottish roads archive:

The central suspended span being lifted by cranes into place at Kylesku Bridge in Sutherland Scotland on 8 August 1984. It is a reinforced concrete cantilever bridge built on a curve, and on 45 degree angled supports

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Mark Rustbucket @markrustbucket.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

Happy #YorkshireDay from Whitby. Organs tuned, houses valued and no arguments brooked.

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Mark Rustbucket @markrustbucket.bsky.social · 18/06/2025

Similar building in Dundee, one of the Olivetti quartet. canmore.org.uk/site/333496/...

Olivetti Building (former), Harrison Road, Dundee, off the Kingsway. From Google Streetview. Built 1972. Triangular prows project the building forward over supporting pillars (piloti). Roof now grey instead of original golden yellow.

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Mark Rustbucket @markrustbucket.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

Forest Mill: handloom shop on the right, spinning mill on the left, 1838, waterwheel house further left- hopefully Andy Elliot is still weaving in there, as in these photos. Yes indeed.

Forest Mill in Selkirk. Two storey building with arched windows. Water wheels were on the right. Stone setted forecourt.

Woman weaving wool on a Dobcross loom with dobby mechanism on the right to send different shuttles across. Forest Mill Selkirk in 2002.

Wool warping mill in Forest Mil Selkirk, 2002

Woman working at two Dobcross power looms. Wire grilles stop shuttles from flying out of the machines and into eyes. Selkirk 2002

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Mark Rustbucket @markrustbucket.bsky.social · 18/04/2025

or some cherubs from Shanghai www.cdtwn.com/index.php?m=...

Cherub in bas relief polyurethane, like those ornamenting the Oval Office after gold spray paint was applied. Made in China.

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Mark Rustbucket @markrustbucket.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

The site started as a sugar refinery built in 1865, a floor maltings (for McEwans beer) to the south and then both became a whisky bond with a big new warehouse added to the north. I did the listing, negotiated the consents for change and am chuffed with the result. Glad you like it!

Bonnington Sugar Refinery, later VAT69 whisky bong written on the roof cistern, and a stone-built floor maltings

8-storey sugar refinery built of brick in 1865 (when it fell down during construction) with an extra storey added, and a gap created where the char house was. Scaffolding put up for the conversion work.

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Mark Rustbucket @markrustbucket.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

And those apartments seen from the north, west and the Water of Leith. The whisky warehouse was built with a steel frame, part retained, in 1908.

A big brick warehouse, with balconies showing coversion to residential uses, and a river with a statue by Anthony Gormley standing in it.

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Mark Rustbucket @markrustbucket.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

Here they are being created in the 1990s inside a VAT69 whisky bond.

A steel-framed whisky bond built in 1908, retained on 3 sides, the fourth side scooped out to bring light into apartments formed in the 1990s

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Mark Rustbucket @markrustbucket.bsky.social · 18/03/2025

No but Paisley Abbey has a gargoyle that fell to earth with Ripley from Alien. www.stirlingcityheritagetrust.org/blog/story-b...

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Mark Rustbucket @markrustbucket.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

And it's a conservation area! A parting gift by Neil Grieve as he moved from Dundee Council Conservation Officer to teaching Euopean Urban Conservation. I thought that more LA would follow suit.

Granite plaque dated 27 May 1920 concludes "this housing scheme being the first in Scotland to be proceeded with by a Local Authority in partnership with the state. Beyond, trees in a spacious boulevard and houses in curved streets named after trees.

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Mark Rustbucket @markrustbucket.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

That's well remembered! McManus gallery has a wooden model of the original Royal Arch, which helped to jog my memory when I saw the Hill and Adamson photo. #Dundee

Wet docks of Dundee in a map of 1859. (Dundee University Archives). The Royal Arch, quickly thrown up in wood to receive Queen Victoria, was between Earl Grey and King William IV Docks, filled in for the Tay Road Bridge in the 1960s. The Tide Harbour was wide enough to admit large paddle steamers now being used by the Queen.

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Mark Rustbucket @markrustbucket.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

Timber sluice gate and 1790s arched culvert over tail race from Trottick Mill where music while you work was pioneered by the fiddle-playing uncle of James Brown, grandfather of flax spinning. River Dighty near Dundee.

Timber sluice gate worked by ratchet and pinion to lead water from the River Dighty into the ponds of Calverhouse bleachworks, now a nature and heritage area. Periodically renewed on Washington's axe principles.

A vaulted stone culvert that conducted water from a waterwheel at Trottick lint, later flax spinning mill, back into the Dighty burn. The spinning mill had a fire in 1811 but the millworker housing survives.

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Mark Rustbucket @markrustbucket.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

Vitrolite has ribbed reverse sides for fixing agents, shown at the exposed corner. Dickson & Co, florists and fruiterers were here from at least 1934 to 1970. Similar panels stacked in basements in Eglinton St, Glasgow, were uncovered by the M74 dig. #vitrolite @historicshopfronts.bsky.social

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Mark Rustbucket @markrustbucket.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

In Clerk St, Edinburgh, a smashing time was had as panels of #Vitrolite were ripped by winds from Alexander's vintage clothing shop by Storm Éowyn. Emerald green opaque toughened glass, its smooth sides covered by red plywood, the chrome, black and green Art Deco shopfront shines through #StormÉowyn

Green vitrolite panels prised by winds from the corner of Montague St. Chrome ventilator panel and window frames over black ceramic base course

Armstrong and Sons' second hand clothes shop, 64-66 Clerk treet with chrome framing, black ceramic base, and red plywood over vitrolite.

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Mark Rustbucket @markrustbucket.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

there she goes -not my photo, but I saw it and it made an impression when I was in Portland.

destruction in 1961 of a French renaissance-style clock tower at Union Station, Portland, Maine, USA.

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Mark Rustbucket @markrustbucket.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

Another street in Rosewell, this time with solar panels. I don't find them very objectionable.

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Mark Rustbucket @markrustbucket.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

Lothian Coal Co also developed the mining village of Rosewell, but it is not a conservation area so you can compare and contrast with First to Fourth Streets, the south part of Newtongrange, which is.

A single storey terrace of miners' houses with slate roofs and chimneys. Plastic windows and doors, and some pebble-dash. Low brick walls also of bing brick with a pleasingly varied appearance. Rosewell, Midlothian, built c1910.

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Mark Rustbucket @markrustbucket.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

Passed to Midlothian Council from BRB (Residiary) Ltd through the good offices of the Scotiish Viaducts Committee, which has since been wound up - remaining #HRE infrastructure still with #HighwaysAgency. It's high up in a gorge- those trees are tall.

A lot of trees in a gorge spanned by a former railway bridge of wrought iron lattice trusses

Cyclist crosses a railway bridge which has internal barriers separating the cycle path from the original railway parapets. In Roslin.

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Mark Rustbucket @markrustbucket.bsky.social · 26/12/2024

From East to West : Edinburgh, Albert, Imperial, Victoria, Old East and West Docks (infilled car parking etc for Victoria quay). Then the basin with the entrance dock and two graving (dry) docks.

Side by side OS map and satellite photo of Leith harbour showing sites of East and West Old Docks by John Rennie, Victoria Dock and the entrance to Albert Dock (National Library of Scotland)

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Mark Rustbucket @markrustbucket.bsky.social · 16/12/2024

That might represent mining headgear at Loos-en-Goelle, a mining village, bing and coal mine at top right, now a World Heritage Site, Bassin Miniere. Soldiers had no better headgear in 1915.

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Mark Rustbucket @markrustbucket.bsky.social · 08/12/2024

Due to scuffs on the glass? It was floodlit at one time. Yours truly before the flair went over the waterwheel.

Rim gearing that took power from a water wheel with accumulated flotsam and jetsam, late 1990s.

Breastshot waterwheel with curved iron buckets below an iron girder and a man holding forth in 2002

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Mark Rustbucket @markrustbucket.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

Obelisk lums, stalks and chimneys in a paper in the AJ @news.architectsjournal.co.uk in 1865 by Peter Carmichel about his chimneys at Dens Works in Dundee. Tricky for Santa. @sticknetwork.bsky.social #ArchiveAdventCalendar #archives #chimney #Egyptian #Dundee

Chimneys built at Upper Dens Mills with square plinths and opelisk points, to reduce effect of wind. Dated 1854 left, 1844 centre and 1864 right, the latter for the foundry in Victoria St, later Eagle Mills. All are demolished.

The Civil Engineer and Architect's Journal, Vol 28- 1865

Artist's exaggerated impression of flax spinning mills, linen weaving sheds and three obelisk chimneys. The Lower Dens mills are less than half the length shown. The commercial office in King St is in a cartouche.

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Mark Rustbucket @markrustbucket.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

A waterwheel for your GGGrandfather by Thomas Aimers of Gala- is that where the swimming pool is? Or at Biggies Knowe Damdale/ Damcroft/ Damside one dam mill after another.

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Mark Rustbucket @markrustbucket.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

Oops its Ballantine's. Ballantyne's are the Peebleshire mill owners. Tweedvale and Tweedholm Mills in Walkerburn, Caerlee Mill ib Innerleithen, latterly Ballantyne Cashmere. Their March St Mill in Peebles is only now being demolished.

Spinning and weaving sheds at two mills in Walkerburn, with Ballantyne Institute, centre, a pump-storage hydro electric power station top left, using the River Tweed, and mass concrete houses. 1980s SDA photo.

Caerlee Mill, oldest spinning/ carding mill in the Borders, 1788, awaiting convesion to mountain bike centre while houses are built in other parts of the site in Innerleithen.

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Mark Rustbucket @markrustbucket.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

It's St Andrews Day and Craigmillar's White House Road House now has a red wheel plaque #TransportTrust (pic, Jenny Bruce)

Interested persons in front of a red plaque fixed to the White House, an art deco pub, now a cafe and community hub in Caigmillar, Edinburgh. They hold the Flags of Scotland and the National Transport Trust.

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Mark Rustbucket @markrustbucket.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

and here from #UNESCO is the World Heritage property at Aleppo outlined in red. I assume Russia and Syria will take care not to bomb it. #BlueShield 2/

Map of the "Ancient City of Aleppo" World Heritage Site outlined in red, with crowded residential districts around an oval mound that carries the citadel. The state party, Syria, put forward this boundary to UNESCO.

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Mark Rustbucket @markrustbucket.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

I went to see what Pathfinder had achieved in Burnley, Lancs. If you want a monument, look about you.

Terraced houses in Burnley, Lancashire, and a large area in the foreground of similar terraces levelled by the gov-funded Pathfinder scheme, leaving pavements and streets.

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Mark Rustbucket @markrustbucket.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

Here's Norway's ambassador to UNESCO observing that Liverpool has lost all the attributes of its Outstanding Universal Value

A man, a woman and a Norwegian flag. Ambassadors in Paris calling for a ballot on removing Liverpool from the World Heritage List during the UNESCO WHC46 meeting in China in 2021

The Guardian reports the deletion of Liverpool from the World Heritage List, On its side.

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Mark Rustbucket @markrustbucket.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

I detoured through Wallasay to take the view across the Mersey and see what the fuss was about. The cranes on the left were building the stadium in what was then Maritime Liverpool WHS. I see no high-rise @unesconow.bsky.social

Bramley-Moore Dock with cranes building a football stadium for everton FC, and the listed accumulator tower, and warehouses at Stanley Dock where the Leeds and Liverpool Canal connects to the port. Seen from over the Mersey.in 2021.

Northern end of the former Maritime Liverpool World Heritage Site viewed from the Wirral. Cranes and a hydraulic Pumping station at Bramley-Moore Dock, a big warehouse and Titanic Hotel at Stanley Dock behind the dazzle ship. I see no high-rise.

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Mark Rustbucket @markrustbucket.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

Portugaleite is at a river mouth in the Basque Country that is crossed by Puente Bizcaya, in Spain. By night and by day. Plus Rochefort, Buenos Aires, Warrington and two in Germany.

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Mark Rustbucket @markrustbucket.bsky.social · 16/10/2024

The big Scottish power stations were all by the seaside for cooling and did not need cooling towers. This was Longannet in 2016.

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Mark Rustbucket @markrustbucket.bsky.social · 15/10/2024

Alto Horno blast furnace already attracted crowds one year ago, before complete restoration.

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Mark Rustbucket @markrustbucket.bsky.social · 15/10/2024

The blast furnace Alto Horno at Sestao was illuminated (surely not just for us at ERIH?) before its restoration. Priorities in the #Basque Country for #industrialheritage.

Blue blast furnace for pig iron with stairs and hand rails

Red blast furnace with Cowper stoves to the left, for gases.

Purple blast furnace with casting floor on the right, viewing stair with appreciative audience, umbrellas aloft in light rain

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Mark Rustbucket @markrustbucket.bsky.social · 02/10/2024

Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station, the last ever coal-fired power station, opened in 1968, switched off on Monday. I happened to get a good view of it from a train a few years ago.

Chimney of a power station flanked by concrete cooling towers, each with a parabolic shape to maximise surface area, on stilts to bring cool air into form an updraft for the vapour that exits at the top.

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Mark Rustbucket @markrustbucket.bsky.social · 01/10/2024

Docomomo Scotland went through the Astley Ainslie ten days ago, and appreciated its multi-period qualities. I am no purist.

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Mark Rustbucket @markrustbucket.bsky.social · 30/09/2024

Blast furnaces at Port Talbot in 2023, closed down today. No primary pig iron is being tapped for the UK steel industry.

Two blast furnaces and a roundabout in South Wales, with steam rising from one of them

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Mark Rustbucket @markrustbucket.bsky.social · 23/09/2024

if you see this #quote post a #photo you have made of a #sunset the Forth Road Bridge, Scotland

The Forth Road Bridge from North Queensferry, a December sunset in 2022. Longest bridge span (in one go) in Scotland, and longest in Europe, 1964-1966.

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Mark Rustbucket @markrustbucket.bsky.social · 23/09/2024

Hello Mr Blue! We're so pleased to be with you! (and off X). Mr Blue Sky by #ELO not #Elon and his Russian disinfo funders.

Dusk falls and a moon rises in a blue sky over a Scottish city

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