Assorting Room at former Kidwelly Tinplate Works

Cadw's description

Location

Situated in Kidwelly Industrial Museum, some 2km NE of the town in the Gwendraeth Fach valley. Sorting Room is the northern half of the red brick range just within museum site.

History

Industrial building of c1880, used for the hand-sorting of tin-plated sheets, polishing and packing. After packing the flat cardboard boxes or tinplate containers (for export) were moved for storage in the Box Room attached to S. The Assorting Room was built after the Box Room. Tin-plate production began on the site in 1737, the second oldest site in Britain. The works closed in 1941 and much was demolished: the surviving Assorting-Room, Box-Room, Hot-Rolling Mill and Cold-Roll Engine House date from 1880-1919.

Exterior

Red brick with tarred felted roof. Single storey long range with much-altered openings on W side. Original openings had yellow-brick jambs and cambered heads, the bricks rounded. Almost all the openings have been blocked or altered: at right end are 3 blocked windows with cast-iron sills, but sills apparently raised or inserted later. Elsewhere the jambs or whole frames of blocked windows are irregularly spaced down length of wall. One doorway towards right end, C20 concrete lintel. Ledged door in altered opening towards left end. Upper end wall is whitewashed with C20 sliding door. Rear had 8 windows, 3 blocked, some still with original cast-iron 9-pane glazing-bars.

Interior

Interior is whitewashed brick with long sorting bench along rear wall. Trussed steel roof of nine bays, boarding under roof cladding.

Reason for designation

Listed as part of the only preserved tin-plate works in Britain.