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Scotch Buildings

buildings in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, England

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionNov 20, 2024
Entity authorityQ23042131
Source-derived summary

The Scotch Buildings was a large complex of tenement housing located off Duke Street in Barrow-in-Furness, then Lancashire, United Kingdom. The build was commissioned by the Barrow Hematite Steel Company and constructed somewhat hastily by Scottish firm Smith and Caird between 1871 and 1872 to address a chronic housing shortage in the rapidly expanding town. The complex took on a triangular form with a centrally located courtyard. The four storey building was constructed from the iconic Hawcoat sandstone and was bound by Blake Street, Duke Street and Walney Road. Two shops and a working men's club were sited on the three corners of the building. It contained some 260 flats housing over 1,000 residents. The Scotch Buildings were ultimately demolished in 1956, the entire site is now shared by a Travis Perkins outlet and the Former Agrilek Engineering company office, now Saint Mary's Hospice Furniture Warehouse.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Scotch Buildings” is buildings in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, England. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Scotch, Buildings and buildings, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1871, 1872, 1956—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Scotch, Buildings and buildings is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “buildings in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, England” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 20, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q23042131. Authority coordinates are 54.117, -3.237. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1871, 1872 and 1956.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Scotch Buildings”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Scotch Buildings primary sources, Scotch Buildings archive and Scotch research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Scotch Buildings”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Scotch Buildings” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.