Weir Pumps

In the sunny west today, where I blipped the super Weir Pumps factory at Cathcart. These offices you can see were designed and built in 1937 by Architects, Wylie, Shanks and Wylie.

Weirs was founded in 1870 and moved to this site in 1886 where they manufactured pumps, boilers and other auxiliary equipment for ships. The factory began to manufacture aeroplanes in 1917 and Weir’s became the largest Clydeside producers of military aircraft. Around that time William Douglas Weir, son of the founder James Weir and former Director of the company, became Secretary of State for the RAF.

No longer the Weir Group’s headquarters, the Cathcart plant is estimated to have had up to one million square feet of factory space at one stage. It is still used for their pump manufacturing division, but is threatened by regular proposals to turn the site into residential housing – originally a greenfield site, the residential tenements around it grew up subsequently.

It is still a massive complex, and the organisation is now one of the worlds largest engineering companies.