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Kingstanding Together

Workshop · Elsewhere

Watt’s Cottage, Kinneil House, Bo’ness

The roofless outbuilding behind Kinneil House where James Watt built his trial engine for John Roebuck in the late 1760s. Roebuck’s ruin in 1773 sent the engine to Birmingham.

Partly surviving
Roofless ruin of a small stone outbuilding among trees, with an old iron engine cylinder beside it.
Kim Traynor, 13 March 2012. Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0

What was here?

An outhouse behind Kinneil House, which John Roebuck leased from the Duke of Hamilton from about 1764. Watt put together his experimental engine here while Roebuck was his partner.

History

Roebuck moved to Kinneil about 1764 to run the Bo’ness coal and salt works. He backed Watt from 1767–68 for two-thirds of the invention, and Watt’s trial engine was built in an outhouse at Kinneil. After Roebuck’s bankruptcy his share passed to Matthew Boulton, and Watt had the engine taken apart and sent to Soho, where it arrived in 1774.

Why it mattered

The engine that started Boulton & Watt at Soho was first assembled here.

More pictures

  • A tall grey stone mansion with steep-roofed corner turrets and a parapet, seen up a drive between two stone gate piers.
    Kinneil House, Bo’ness, 22 August 2007Tom Sargent, 22 August 2007. Wikimedia Commons (from Geograph) · CC BY-SA 2.0

What’s there now

What survives

Roofless stone walls, with an old engine cylinder from a Bo’ness pit displayed beside them.

Today

In Kinneil Estate, Bo’ness.

Then and now

Then · 13 March 2012

Roofless ruin of a small stone outbuilding among trees, with an old iron engine cylinder beside it.
James Watt’s Cottage, Kinneil — Kim Traynor, 13 March 2012. Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0

Now · 13 March 2012

Roofless ruin of a small stone outbuilding among trees, with an old iron engine cylinder beside it.
James Watt’s Cottage, Kinneil — Kim Traynor, 13 March 2012. Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0

Key dates

  1. 1773–74 — Roebuck’s share in Watt’s engine passes to BoultonRuined by flooded coal pits, John Roebuck settles a debt of about £1,200 to Matthew Boulton by handing over his two-thirds share in James Watt’s engine patent. Watt’s trial engine is shipped from Kinneil to Soho, and Watt follows in 1774.

The full timeline →

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Sources and further reading
Where the sources differ

The ruin is traditionally identified as Watt’s workshop; Geograph’s caption calls it “reputed”.

  1. Lives of Boulton and Watt — Samuel Smiles, John Murray, London, 1865
  2. Roebuck, John (1718–1794) — Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 49 — Francis Espinasse, Smith, Elder & Co., 1897
  3. Watt’s Cottage — Friends of Kinneil
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