page_title: Greenock
section_title: Sugar
hierarchical_section_title: Greenock / Economy / Sugar
caption_attribution_description: The Sugar Warehouse at Greenock's James Watt Dock is now a listed building, awaiting possible conversion. The hammerhead crane now towers over flats being built on former shipyards and dockside. photograph taken in February 2006 by User:Dave souza. Any re-use to contain this licence notice and to attribute the work to User:Dave souza at Wikipedia.
context_page_description: Greenock is a town and administrative centre in the Inverclyde council area in Scotland and a former burgh within the historic county of Renfrewshire, located in the west central Lowlands of Scotland. It forms part of a contiguous urban area with Gourock to the west and Port Glasgow to the east.
  The 2011 UK Census showed that Greenock had a population of 44,248, a decrease from the 46,861 recorded in the 2001 UK Census. It lies on the south bank of the Clyde at the "Tail of the Bank" where the River Clyde expands into the Firth of Clyde.
context_section_description: Sugar refining began in Greenock in 1765. John Walker began a sugar refinery in Greenock in 1850 followed by the prominent local cooper and shipowner Abram Lyle who, with four partners, purchased the Glebe Sugar Refinery in 1865. Another 12 refineries were active at one point. The most successful of these was Tate & Lyle. It was formed from a merger in 1921 between Abram Lyle, who had expanded into Plaistow, and Henry Tate, who had set up a sugar refinery in Liverpool and had expanded into London.
  The James Watt Dock, opened in 1886, provided shipping and shipbuilding facilities including a large warehouse (known as the Sugar Shed) which was used for both imported raw sugar, and refined sugar ready for delivery.
  By the end of the 19th century, around 400 ships a year were transporting sugar from Caribbean holdings to Greenock for processing. There were 14 sugar refineries, including The Westburn, Walkers, The Glebe, Lochore and Ferguson and Dempster, plus a sugar beet factory on Ingleston Street. Tobacco from the Americas also arrived here.
  When Tate and Lyle finally closed its Greenock refinery in 1997 it brought to an end the town's 150-year-old connections with sugar manufacture. A newly built sugar warehouse continued shipping operations at Greenock's Ocean Terminal. The former sugar warehouse at the James Watt Dock was by then scheduled as a category A listed building as a fine example of early industrial architecture, with an unusual feature of a colonnade of cast iron columns forming a sheltered unloading area next to the quayside. This building has since lain empty, with various schemes being proposed for conversion and restoration. The photographs show the building still intact in February 2006, but a fire on the evening of 12 June 2006 caused severe damage to much of the building before being brought under control in the early hours of 13 June. The local council confirmed that parts of the building will have to be taken down to ensure public safety, but promised an investigation and emphasised the importance of this world heritage building.
  In 2007, approval was given to proposals for a major regeneration project. As of 2018, the building and adjacent area of the dock accommodated a marina.
caption: The Sugar Shed dominates the James Watt Dock
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