St Magdalene Linlithgow
The Distillery.
Fact about the distillery.
Status: Demolished, the site now occupied by private houses but the pagoda roof still remains.
Type: Malt Lowlands.
Mothballed/silent: In the 1930ies-to 1946
Closed: 1983.
Staff: In 1885 forty with four excise officers.
Water source: A hilltop spring and an artesian well (300feet/91,4 meters in deep) for brewing and the Union Canal for cooling and driving the water wheel.
Barley source: Lothians
Maltings: Floor maltings until 1968, and Glenesk distillery since then to close year 1983.
Drying process: A mixture of peat and coke was used.
Peat Source: From Falkirk and Slamannan.
Malt Bin: Storing 30,000quarters/6,096.3 tonnes for a season.
Mill: Two steam powered malt rollers.
Mash tun: 21 feet/6,4meters in diameter and 6feet/1,8meters in depth, with steam powered double action stirring rakes. The mash used 129.600 litres of malt per week.
Cooling system: Morton´s refrigerator.
Washbacks: Fourteen 29.549 litres each.
Wash charger: 40.914 litres.
Wash still: Two steam heated (since 1971), 15.911 litres and 22.189 litres.
Low wines: One 13.638 litres.
Spirit stills: Three steam heated since 1971, 6.819 litres, 8.487 litres and one on 12.165 litres.
Cooling for distillation: Three worm tubs.
Spirit vat: 10.456 litres.
Bonded warehouses: Twenty on site, with total 7.500 casks.
Production volume: With full capacity of 1.022.852 litres per year.
Percentage for Single Malt: 0%
The distillery consisted of two huge, stone malting-barns (one four-storey, one enclosing a courtyard) and three square kilns capped with pagoda ventilators. Eastern range refurbished with adjacent neo-Mackintosh terraced housing, 1990, by Cooper Design Associates and monumental western structure, 2002, by R & G Homes.