Fulton Engine Works, Liverpool
of Blackstone Street, Liverpool
Various occupants over the years:-
1885 Partnership dissolved: 'Alexander MacDonald Black Fraser, and Prescott Gardner, trading as A. B. Fraser and Co., at the Fulton Iron Works, Fulton-street, Regent-road, Liverpool, engineers and boiler makers. H. P. Gardner retires.'[1]
The 1890/1893 25" O.S. map here[2] shows a small building close to the docks, at the corner of Blackstone Street and Fulton Street, bounded on the north by a goods warehouse, and on the east by railway lines. The map shows a single building measuring 170 ft by 55 ft. A number of other buildings nearby are also shown as Engine Works, and one is identified as an Iron & Brass Foundry. Some or all of these additional premises were occupied by David Rollo and Sons. The area east of Fulton Street has been cleared of any character, but fortunately some of the old buildings have so far (April 2021) escaped demolition. Part of the old frontage on Regent Road survives, still bearing the name 'David Rollo' over the highest part of the premises. The oiginal loading bay door has been enlarged, but it is flanked by a pair of original round-topped cast iron-framed windows. Above these are four smaller cast iron-framed windows. The adjacent part of the frontage on the south side has three floors with iron-framed windows, and there is also a cellar. Similar Iron-framed windows have also survived at the back (Fulton Street side) of the building. Immediately south of the Regent Road frontage is a row of terraced buidlings, some of which were once pubs.
The old brick-built Engine Works building on Fulton Street has also survived, with the some of the door and window openings bricked up, including very large loading bay doorways. It has an arched ('Belfast') roof. The railway which formerly ran immediately east of these buildings has gone, but part of the viaduct has survived, with the remains of seven archways. Formerly a branch of the high level railway (the L&YR High Level Coal Railway) bisected Fulton Street and crossed Regent Road by the remarkable Bramley-Moore Dock Lifting Bridge, long demolished (although part of the masonry abutment survives behind the dock wall).