Small Silo, Ice Factor, Former Kinlochleven Aluminium Works, Kinlochleven

The Former Kinlochleven Aluminium Works, known as Ice Factor, is a building constructed between 1904 and 1909, designed by P W Meik of Thomas Meik and Sons, with Alfred H Roberts as the resident engineer and Sir W Murray Morrison as the manager and technical advisor. Sir John Jackson Ltd was the principal contractor. The structure features tall rubble-built ranges, including early reinforced concrete silos, which formed one side of the carbon factory that was largely demolished in 1989.

The small silo is a 5-bay gabled block with a buttressed northwest elevation. It has five small ground floor windows and two narrow round-headed windows on the first floor, positioned above concrete diamond features. The northeast and southeast elevations are plain and previously connected to the now-demolished factory by twin arches. The northeast gable is clad in metal sheets.

The building has a slate roof with a curved ridge ventilator, and there is a flat-roofed single-storey block at the southwest re-entrant angle, which features a large opening and door. A linking 2-bay screen wall adjoins the main silo block, supported by reinforced concrete buttresses and a lintel course.

The main silo block has seven buttressed bays on the southwest elevation, with tall round-headed openings that reveal the concrete wall of the silo at the first floor. The northwest gable, which serves as the entrance elevation, features a stepped inverted mansard roof and a wide basket-arched opening at attic level. This opening was formerly used by a conveyor from an adjoining small single-storey block that fed silos, which was demolished in 1989. The wall is whitewashed where this block was attached.

The northeast elevation of the main silo block consists of seven bays with an exposed trabeated reinforced concrete frame and a flat reinforced concrete roof that extends to the southeast gable elevation. This elevation is entirely glazed up to the flat roof, with the glazing dating from the 1990s.