Kinlochleven, Former Kinlochleven Aluminium Works, Ice Factor, Main Block is a Grade B listed building in the Highland local planning authority area, Scotland. First listed on 31 January 1991. Factory.
Kinlochleven, Former Kinlochleven Aluminium Works, Ice Factor, Main Block
- WRENN ID
- hushed-quartz-cream
- Grade
- B
- Local Planning Authority
- Highland
- Constituency
- Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber MP: Brendan O'Hara (SNP)
- Country
- Scotland
- Date first listed
- 31 January 1991
- Type
- Factory
- OS grid reference
- NN 188 619
- Coordinates
- 56.71365, -4.9616
- Source
- Historic Environment Scotland listing
Description
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.
Local climate
Kinlochleven, Former Kinlochleven Aluminium Works, Ice Factor, Main Block sits in one of the wettest parts of the UK, with an average of 2,010 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 99% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 94% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 75 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 99% of listed buildings. Of these, 56 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
More on this building
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- No EPC on record for this property
- No sale records on file
- No related consent applications matched
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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