About the Foundry Collection project

We’re working on a project to review and catalogue our fantastic Foundry Collection at the Auld Kirk Museum! You may have already seen our social media posts for #ironworkthursday

This large and important collection includes patterns and foundry products of all shapes and sizes, hand tools used by foundry workers, printing blocks for catalogues and fascinating photographs.

Kirkintilloch was a major UK centre for cast ironwork during the 19th century due to its canals, railways and coal mines. A number of prominent foundries were started here, with products exported as far as India, China, Taiwan and Australia.

Across the UK Kirky ironwork can still be seen in the form of famous red telephone boxes and post boxes, gates and railings for grand Victorian parks, ornate bandstands and notable buildings such as The Palace of Westminster.

The original estimate for the foundry collection at the museum was around 1000 objects, but from our work on the project so far we have an estimate closer to 3900!

We’ve been making some exciting discoveries in-store and can’t wait to share them with you.

This project is kindly supported by Museums Galleries Scotland.