Connswater Industrial Heritage Trail
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CONNSWATER Industrial Heritage C RE OM TRAIL M C S Lewis Square E N E D C & EastSide Visitor I E R D P R L E Centre. Est 2016 I T A Irish Distillery Holywood Arches Bloomeld Bakery Belfast Ropeworks R.J Welch © Ulster Museum Belfast had its origins as a small settlement Belfast 440000 called Béal Feirste, at the mouth of the river Farset. Growth was slow - by 1700, its AN INDUSTRIAL POWERHOUSE 349000 440,000 > population was only 2,500. Yet 150 years later, 349,000 > after the Irish Famine, it mushroomed to over 100,000, as people moved from the country to the town in search of work. Thousands were employed in the rapidly growing linen mills, rope factories, engineering works and shipyards of east Belfast. Huge factories lined the 62500 banks of the Connswater, Knock and Loop rivers WATER STEAM ELECTRICITY and narrow horse-drawn barges, called lighters, 2000 1900 1800 brought raw materials and carried away nished 62,500 > goods for export. Water from1700 the rivers fed powerful steam engines and was used for many industrial processes. 1732 Belfast1752 Belfastgains its gains rst newspaperits rst1773 bank 17 million yards of linen1793 Shipbuildingexported begins1815 in 1823Belfast 1829 183918411843 1851 1862 1872 188818901895 1904 1906 1911 1936 1941 1966 1989 19941997 2000 Belfast gains a hospital Clarendon Dock is built The RMS Titanic is launched in Belfast Belfast gainsFirst steam gas Railwaylight drivenQueens toQueens spinning Lisburn Island Bridge millopensformed opensHarland &Horse Wol drawn ShipyardBelfast trams founded Albert runis madePublic inBridge Belfast a electricity city & Electric supply City trams Hall introduced opens ShortBelfast Brothers is bombed factory opensQueen ElizabethLaganside II BridgeLagan opens CorporationWaterfront Weir installed Odyssey formedHall opens opens Over the years, much of east Belfast’s industrial heritage has been lost, as factories and 18,000 > warehouses have been replaced by houses and Belfast Public Library built 13,000 > shops. But as you walk along the Connswater Community Greenway, you can still catch a fascinating glimpse of a time when Belfast was 13000 POPULATION one of the mightiest industrial cities in the world. OF BELFAST 2,500 THE QUEENS BRIDGE LOOKING INTO EAST BELFAST WITH ITS INDUSTRIAL SKYLINE HOLLERITH TABULATOR PRODUCED BY BTM INGLIS & CO. BREAD CANTRELL & COCHRANE HARLAND & WOLFF SHIPYARD WORKER ADVERTISMENT ADVERTISMENT It went on to become the largest World War, acquired a factory site close to natural springs. The water street had a cobbler to repair and THE PEOPLE, rope producer in the world. Engineering & at Castlereagh. Known locally as ‘the in east Belfast’s rivers was too heavily maintain boots and shoes for the THE PLACE manufacturing Tab’, BTM manufactured Hollerith polluted by industrial activity to be local families. At its peak, the Belfast Ropeworks For those living and working tabulators, the forerunners of modern used for human consumption. Company covered 16 hectares SHIP AND PLANES Horses were the key to Belfast’s in industrial east Belfast during the computers. (about 40 acres), employed over transport until well into the 20th 19th and early 20th century, life was In 1858, Edward Harland bought FLOUR MILL 3,000 people and produced 13,000 In 1959 BTM became International century. They were used as draught tough, gritty and often short. a shipbuilding yard at Queen’s Island A map of 1834 shows Orangefield tonnes of rope per year. It closed Computers and Tabulators Limited animals to haul narrow boats loaded By 1901, life expectancy was still and three years later went into Corn Mill situated on the Knock River around 1973. (ICT) and later ICL (International with goods along the rivers, to drag only 48 years. partnership with Gustav Wolff to beside the Home Farm on the form Harland & Wolff Ltd. This was Computers Limited). heavy coal carts and to pull trams, There were also smaller ropeworks, Blakiston-Houston Estate. The long Men worked in heavy industries such to become the largest single shipyard carriages, milk floats, delivery wagons known as ropewalks, such as the one mill race (a channel which takes water as shipbuilding, while women were in the world, employing over 40,000 and fire engines. Men called carters at Ardgowan Street, opposite the Food to a water wheel) from the river was employed mostly in the mills and at its peak. provided this road transport service, Loop Bridge Spinning Mill. still evident in the 1950s. weaving industries. The hours were & drink and laid on the hay, fodder and shelter It specialised in twine for the textile long and working conditions in the Short Brothers established an aircraft needed for the hundreds of horses industry and operated from around Belfast’s rapidly growing population FRESH WATER factories and mills were harsh. factory on Queen’s Island in 1936. that tramped each day through the 1900 until the 1960s. of manual workers needed a reliable As Belfast grew throughout the 18th Children as young as eight were The company later became Short Bros streets of east Belfast. and Harland and in 1989, was bought and affordable supply of foodstuffs. and 19th centuries, the demand for employed under the ‘half-time’ LINENOPOLIS Some workers received food tokens clean water constantly outpaced the system, alternating their days by Bombardier, the world's third- The Ballymacarrett area had a long largest civil aircraft manufacturer. as part payment, which could be supply. The construction of the Silent REGENERATION between the schoolroom and the exchanged for meals at a company Valley reservoir in 1910 brought 20 While no longer a centre for linen mills, earning a few extra tradition of cotton weaving, so when the first linen mills opened in the Shorts established its Guided Weapons canteen. million gallons per day to the city. manufacturing and industry, Belfast shillings to help sustain their Division in the Castlereagh Industrial has adopted successful strategies to families. There were more than 100 1830s, a skilled workforce was BAKERIES available. Estate at Montgomery Road in 1952. deliver regeneration, foster economic pawnbrokers in the city in 1911, This government-built industrial estate Bakeries were established to supply The cooper, growth and improve the lives of which says much about the wealth The Connswater river was navigable housed many well-known companies, bread to the local populace. the cobbler, residents. and income for many in Belfast. at that time and water from the from Fox’s Glacier Mints confectioners The New Public Bakery Co. opened the carter The skills acquired at Harland & Wolff Connswater, Knock and Loop rivers to toy makers Lines Bros. at the at Bloomfield Avenue in 1880 and, A network of back-to-back, are now applied in marine and offshore was used in linen production. The raw Triang Works. became the Bloomfield Bakery In the 19th and early 20th centuries red-brick terrace housing was built renewable energy, and Belfast now has material used in linen production – in 1894. In 1933 the company was the only way to transport liquids was to accommodate the workers. an enviable IT infrastructure and high- flax – was also transported along the Belfast’s engineering companies taken over by Inglis. The 1938 in wooden barrels. The Belfast Street Most streets shared a communal end customer support facilities. rivers to the mills. contributed massively to the war Ordnance Survey map shows Directory for 1900 lists 16 water pump or tap, but with the The former shipyards on Queen’s effort during the Second World War a ‘Biscuit Factory’ adjacent to the cooperages (barrel makers), with opening of Templemore Public Island are now home to Titanic Belfast, Belfast’s linen industry was helped by (1939-1945). The city was devastated Loop River at Orangefield. This later Secker & Co., Coopers and Cask Baths (1893), locals could enjoy a world-class visitor attraction, as well the American Civil War (1861-1865), by four German air attacks in April and became the Weston Biscuit Factory Merchants located at Ardgowan a steaming hot bath. as a large film production studio and which devastated cotton production, May 1941 ( the ‘Belfast Blitz’), which and is currently occupied by Street on Castlereagh Road, opposite an innovative scientific hub. and created an opening for linen killed more than 1,000. Allied Bakeries. McCaw, Stephenson & Orr Print Rope, linen products. In 1871, there were 78 mills Works. When the firm closed in the The Connswater Industrial Heritage & weaving employing 43,000 and by 1894, CODE BREAKING DISTILLERIES AND late 1950s, only two cooperages were Trail follows the Connswater Belfast was producing 644 million Much of the expertise developed SOFT DRINKS listed in Belfast. Coopers made new Community Greenway, opened miles of yarn, enough to encircle the in the design of linen-weaving barrels, repaired damaged ones and TWINE AND CORD The Avoniel Distillery occupied the 2016/17. The Greenway is a 9km world 25,000 times. equipment was transferable to the rebuilt empty barrels previously From 1750 onwards, with the port of site of the old Connswater Spinning linear park along the course of the manufacture of production line collapsed for ease of transportation. Belfast flourishing and industries such Mill from 1882. The much larger Irish Connswater, Knock and Loop rivers, Work in the linen mills was machinery. In 1949, the British as shipbuilding on the rise, there was Distillery at Connswater Street creating safer, cleaner and greener notoriously hard and unhealthy. Tabulating Machine Co. (BTM), The heavy industries of east Belfast growing demand for rope and thread. opened 1886. Both ceased production public space, whilst connecting people A typical working week for a mill which had manufactured parts for were hard on working men’s boots – Belfast had many rope makers, and in in 1929, following Prohibition in USA.