Rebuilding Diary

Almost five years to the day since David Thomson and Teresa Church first 'discovered' Annandale Distillery, restoration of the historic buildings has finally begun. It was a day of mixed emotions for us because David's mother had died on the previous Monday (20 June) and therefore, very sadly, she will not see the distillery in operation. However, it's of some comfort to us that she did know that the restoration work was about to start.

After a very detailed tendering process, the building contract was awarded to W.H. Kirkwood Ltd of Greenock. The project will be managed on behalf of Professor David Thomson, Teresa Church and Dr Steve Green (the ultimate owners of Annandale Distillery Company Ltd.) by Fiona Sinclair (Architect, Glasgow) and Malcolm Rennie (Annandale Distillery Manager). Other members of our project team include John Addison our Structural Engineer (Addison Conservation & Design Ltd, Roslin), Quantity Surveyors Donald Lynn and John Donaldson (T.J. Ross, Coatbridge) and Clerk of Works (and horse racing expert) Billy Boyle (D.A. Gilmour Ltd, Falkirk). Mabbett & Associates (Glasgow) continue to provide engineering support on matters relating to the environment and utilities, whilst CDM Scotland (Ayr) is keeping us right on matters of site health and safety. As always, Bert Smith will be 'keeping a watchful eye on things'! Last but definitely not least, Dr Jim Swan is our whisky consultant.

The building work is scheduled to take 52 working weeks, although it will be some time after that before 'fitting-out' of the distillery will be completed.

We are grateful to Historic Scotland for support.