In the 1928 OS Maps McGrouther’s Bacon Factory appeared and at or about the same time three cottages and two semi-detached Villas were built in the same vicinity. One of these semi detached Villas was erected by “Scottish Bacon Curing Factories Ltd.” It consisted of two four apartment dwellings currently believed to be those at 54 – 56 Cornton Road.
According to his obituary in “The Herald” Duncan H. McGrouther who died of a stroke in 1996 at the age of 82 – “…had, at the age of 19, moved to Stirling from Paisley in 1933 to help his uncle run the family business, McGrouther Ltd. which manufactured sausages and pies and cured bacon.” The Obituary continues to say that “McGrouther Ltd. was sold in 1971 to the Farmers Marketing Corporation (FMC) after having been a successful family business from 1928. The site is now a Business Park.”
One can take from that that the factory was opened in 1928 and effectively operated there until 1971 on the area that is now occupied by Bracken Lane, The Meadows and Fernbank.
Duncan H. McGrouther was also a former Baillie and Dean of Guild in Stirling and he took over sole responsibility for the firm after his uncle died in 1941. He married Betty Clink in 1943. Betty who had been working in the factory for two years at that time was one of 300 employees.
Scrutiny of the British Newspaper Archive reveals that the offices of McGrouther’s bacon Factory at Cornton were targetted by safebreakers twice! Once in 1937 and then again in 1955. On one these occasions the safe was blown up and caused a significant amount of damage.
When McGrouther’s sold the place it was apparently occupied by Kirkpatricks of Scotland and Harris of Scotland in succession. From anecdotal evidence it seems that the factory continued to slaughter pigs and produce pork comestibles in the way of sausages and pies. While there existed a piggery on the other side of the Cornton Road in the early fifties, there is nothing that links the two functions except coincidence. There is also anecdotal evidence that at least some of the animals slaughtered there were those that were the subject of the studies at the Pig Industry Development Station.
The Scotsman of Friday 15 February 1974 reported that The Stirling Dean of Guild Court granted warrant to Kirkpatrick of Scotland Ltd. bacon curers of 58 Cornton Road Stirling to alter and extend their factory at a cost of £250,000.
From Facebook enquiries: –
Worked there in 69/70s.1st job was taking the skin of pigs head to get the meat at the cheeks. YUK. Jimmy Paterson from the Raploch was the gaffer. I remember Jimmy Kirkwood.. Andy Stevenson.. Wullie Lindae..Big Doc… Harpo…. John Lowe…Paddy Mckenna.. To mention a few… Norman Richardson was the top man if I remember.
It was Mcgrouthers in the 70s , pig slaughter house. It stopped killing the pigs in the 80s. Then it became Harris of Scotland . There was a new factor outside Stirling where they cut the pork.
I drove for Harris of Scotland to all the butcher shops all over Scotland for around 4 years stayed there until the end. Closed down became the industrial park.
It must have closed later than that. I was married in 1980 and lived next to it for years. The squeals of the pigs used to traumatise me. Then there was poor wee Darren Kaney who drowned in the slurry pit; it was awful.
My mum used 2 work in Harris’s meat factory at the Cornton
Worked in FMC they did cattle & sheep Harris’s did pigs
They were still processing animals until about early 80s. I stayed just behind factory.
It stopped slaughtering in approx may1987 and remained open for a short period after that. Both my wife and myself worked there.
McGrouthers, then Kirkpatrick’s of Scotland & finally Harris of Scotland before the factory closed in 1989/1990, 1987 when the slaughter department closed leaving only part of the factory operating till 1989/1990 approx.
I was a van salesman their around 1966, met my wife there, Jennie Lyon, she worked in the office, we married in 1969, still together!
In 1990 it was purchased again by Industrial Estates (Scotland) Ltd and established as a Business Park. This from the Stirling Observer at the time: –
Industrial Estates (Scotland) Ltd. was a private Limited Company with share capital incorporated in 1973. At the time of the acquisition of the former Bacon Factory (1990) John Bernard Gavin is listed as a director and Stephen Michael Nettleton is recorded as Company Secretary but became a director in 1992. The company is now listed as “Dissolved”
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