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New Lanark

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United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Date of Inscription: 2001
Criteria: (ii)(iv)(vi)
Core zone: 146 ha
Buffer zone: 667 ha
South Lanarkshire, Scotland
N55 39 48 W3 46 59
Ref: 429rev

Brief Description

New Lanark is a small 18th- century village set in a sublime Scottish landscape where the philanthropist and Utopian idealist Robert Owen moulded a model industrial community in the early 19th century. The imposing cotton mill buildings, the spacious and well-designed workers' housing, and the dignified educational institute and school still testify to Owen's humanism.

Justification for Inscription

Criterion ii When Richard Arkwright’s new factory system for textile production was brought to New Lanark the need to provide housing and other facilities to the workers and managers was recognized. It was there that Robert Owen created a model for industrial communities that was to spread across the world in the 19th and 20th centuries. Criterion iv New Lanark saw the construction not only of well designed and equipped workers’ housing but also public buildings designed to improve their spiritual as well as their physical needs. Criterion vi The name of New Lanark is synonymous with that of Robert Owen and his social philosophy in matters such as progressive education, factory reform, humane working practices, international cooperation, and garden cities, which was to have a profound influence on social developments throughout the 19th century and beyond.

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