Ardross distillery
Ardross Investments appointed Blyth & Blyth to undertake the Lead Consultant, Principal Designer, Civil and Structural, and Building Services Engineering role to develop a new Distillery to produce 1 MLA of Whisky on a site of disused farm steadings on site near the village of Ardross, north of Inverness.
Location: Ardross
Client: Ardross Investments Ltd.
Cost: £6m
Completion: July 2019
The site was a former farm steading with associated land of approximately 20 hectares, and within this land there is a Loch to the north of the site, that was ideal for the water source for the new Distillery.
As part of the design we required to design and detail a new water off take from the loch and run a 1-kilometre pipeline down to supply the process and cooling water for the Distillery.
The location that was identified for the Distillery was the site of former farm steadings some of which were to be utilised in the new distillery, with the demolition of other areas, and part new build to create a the Distillery with associated offices, blending lab, and guest experience areas.
Key challenges
The first challenge was to deal with the bats and owls that had taken residence within to old steading buildings.
With the assistance of the Ecologist we manged to get the owl to move to the owl boxes installed on site, and as such the refurbishment works where able to commence.
Another challenge was to get safe access to survey and understand what buildings could be refurbished and what required to be demolished.
Once this was established the layout of the Distillery could be developed to suit the remaining building footprints.
Results
The Distillery was completed June 2019 and went into the final commissioning stages with the building fully snagged. The end result is a well laid out facility with all operational aspects accounted for, with high end associated client facilities also being provided within the spaces.