NATIONAL lottery heritage fund award

Friends of The Pipe Factory CIC are delighted to announce that thanks to a grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund of £1,681,836, the Calton’s historic Pipe Factory is to be repurposed as a vibrant cultural and creative hub.

Our ‘Refiring the Pipe Factory!’ project will help to save Scotland’s last remaining clay smoking pipe factory, by ensuring its ongoing use in the heart of Glasgow, securing the landmark building’s access and maintenance, whilst preserving and celebrating its history.

Situated in the 100-year-old Barras market, this Grade B Listed building will provide resilience and security for the CIC’s members who will be able to continue to provide activities focused on education, creativity, and career development.

Public programming will celebrate the heritage of the building and local area; increase access to the arts, architecture and design; provide skills development and training; and bring communities together.

'Refiring the Pipe Factory!' invites the people of the Calton to get involved with a roster of heritage themed learning opportunities right on their doorstep, involving themes of community archaeology, local prehistory, historic research & archiving, heritage curation, and much more.

Friends of The Pipe Factory would like to thank all our supporters and partners who have helped the project get to this point, in particular Scottish Government, Glasgow City Council, NESTA, our private social investors, our members, Community Enterprise, the Margaret McIver Company and the people of the Barras and Calton.

Regeneration capital grant fund award

Friends of The Pipe Factory are delighted to announce that thanks to a grant from the Regeneration Capital Grant Fund of £1,965,354, the B-listed Pipe Factory on Bain Street in Calton in the East End of Glasgow, is to be transformed into a community and creative hub.

The renovation project will enable The Friends to deliver more projects like Barras100 and Loom Large, and they look forward to many conversations with the community as to how The Pipe Factory programme should grow and develop over the coming years.

The grant will enable the Friends to undertake internal remodeling, installation of a new lift and secondary staircase, external and internal building fabric repair and upgrade, full replacement/installation of low carbon and energy-efficient heating, lighting and ventilation systems, insulation, energy efficiency, and resource management systems, and replacement of ground floor windows, and internal and external doors.

When William White and Sons operated the building as a clay smoking pipe factory between 1877 and 1955, they employed over 500 people, and as such, the building was at the heart of the Calton community. Our project has been to refire The Pipe Factory and return the building to the community as a facility for creative activity and community wellbeing. Thanks to this award from the Regeneration Capital Grant Fund, the project is no longer a pipe dream!

Friends of The Pipe Factory would like to thank all our supporters and partners who have helped the project get to this point, in particular Scottish Government, Glasgow City Council, NESTA, our private social investors, our members, Community Enterprise, the Margaret McIver Company and the people of the Barras and Calton.

The building

The Pipe Factory was built between 1876-79, and designed by architect Matthew Forsyth (1850-80). The Italian Renaissance-inspired design details are some of the most intricate and ornate use of brick to be found within the city.

The building comprises a complex sequence of three ornate red and white brick buildings, which were originally linked by an equally ornate two storey building filling the site between the three buildings (which was the main entrance and housed the kilns).

Matthew Forsyth was born in 1850, the son of James Forsyth, farmer and his wife Elizabeth Downs. He commenced practice at the early age of twenty-three in Airdrie, but soon opened an office at 191 West George Street, Glasgow. In 1879 he was a member of the Council of Management of the Glasgow Institute of Architects.

He completed only a few buildings before his promising architectural career was cut short when he tragically died, in February 1880, at the age of 29.