Archived report · 2 min read · Set in Marchmont House ·
The Cooling Tower at Marchmont Mill
A structural survey of the cooling tower at the old Marchmont mill finds the concrete shell warm to the touch at night, and the condensation running down its inner wall spells out the working shifts of workers who left the mill decades ago.
- filed: Filed with the industrial heritage review
- reference: CT/MM/31
Subject: hyperbolic cooling tower, Marchmont Mill, former textile works. Height 46 metres, base diameter 32 metres.
1. The tower was built in 1952 to cool the condensers of the mill's steam engine. The mill closed in 1979. The tower has been empty and disused since, and was listed as a structure of local interest in 1998.
2. Structural inspection found the concrete shell sound, with minor spalling at the lower level and no cracking above the fourth ring. The steel reinforcement shows light surface corrosion consistent with its age.
3. Surface temperature readings were taken at dusk and at midnight. The external surface of the shell measured 11 degrees Celsius at dusk, close to ambient. At midnight, the readings on the north face rose to 19 degrees, and the temperature remained elevated until dawn.
4. No heat source is present in the structure. The tower is not connected to any utility. No machinery, heating or electrical equipment is installed.
5. Inside the tower, condensation forms on the inner wall of the shell at night and runs down in narrow channels to the basin at the base. The channels follow the pattern of the old cooling fill racks, which were removed in the seventies.
6. Analysis of the condensation pattern on the inner wall showed a series of short horizontal lines, grouped in blocks of eight, each block separated by a space. The surveyor, matching the blocks to the mill's surviving shift register, found that each group corresponded to the start and finish times of a single working shift on the night turn in 1958.
7. Recommendation: the structure to be monitored for further movement. Heritage advice is that the tower should remain standing, as it is considered sound and of historical value.
8. Observation not explained by the survey: the condensation pattern for the most recent night includes a block of eight lines beginning at 22:00 and ending at 06:00, and a ninth line below it, shorter, that does not match any shift on record. The line is not dripping. It is written in the same careful hand as the mill's old timekeeping cards, and it reads, in the surveyor's transcription, *Here for the morning*.