The James Watt College is a further education

Further education

Further education is a term mainly used in connection with education in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It is post-compulsory education , that is distinct from the education offered in universities...

 college in Greenock

Greenock

Greenock is a town and administrative centre in the Inverclyde council area in United Kingdom, and a former burgh within the historic county of Renfrewshire, located in the west central Lowlands of Scotland...

, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

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History, facilities

The James Watt Memorial College on the corner of William Street and Dalrymple Street was officially opened as the Watt Memorial Engineering and Navigation School on 1 June 1908. The building was constructed near the site of James Watt

James Watt

James Watt, FRS, FRSE was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both his native Great Britain and the rest of the world.While working as an instrument maker at the...

's birthplace (which was on the other side of William Street) and was built with funds donated by another famous Scot, Andrew Carnegie

Andrew Carnegie

Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish-American industrialist, businessman, and entrepreneur who led the enormous expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century...

, who performed the opening ceremony, unveiling a statue of James Watt that stands prominently in the angle formed at the corner tower. David Barclay of Glasgow

Glasgow

Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...

 designed the original red sandstone building in a heavily ornamented Scottish baronial style

Scottish baronial style

The Scottish Baronial style is part of the Gothic Revival architecture style, using stylistic elements and forms from castles, tower houses and mansions of the Gothic architecture period in Scotland, such as Craigievar Castle and Newark Castle, Port Glasgow. The revival style was popular from the...

, The corner is marked by an L-plan tower, the wing to William Street being capped by a crow step gable while the north wing has a conical roofed tower above a balustrade. The Dalrymple Street facade faces north out onto the main A8 road to Glasgow and is capped by a steep sloping roof up to an iron balustrade which protects a flat roof originally used to allow navigation students to take observations of the sun. The west corner features a corbel

Corbel

In architecture a corbel is a piece of stone jutting out of a wall to carry any superincumbent weight. A piece of timber projecting in the same way was called a "tassel" or a "bragger". The technique of corbelling, where rows of corbels deeply keyed inside a wall support a projecting wall or...

led corner turret with a conical roof. A later extension in William Street to the south of the tower is in a plainer more modern style. The building is now in use by Inverclyde Council local authority education department as office accommodation.

Over the years, the changing demands of commerce and industry highlighted the need for a new, purpose built College. The college relocated to its present Finnart Street site near Greenock West railway station

Greenock West railway station

Greenock West railway station is a station in Greenock, Scotland, located on the Inverclyde Line which runs from Gourock to Glasgow Central. The route is currently operated by First ScotRail under the auspices of Strathclyde Partnership for Transport...

 in 1973, the eight-story main teaching block (by Boissevain and Osmond) dominating the area. The 1970s also witnessed a move away from traditional heavy industries into other areas of commerce and as a result, the college adapted to offer a different education focus.

Since then, the College has expanded to include campuses on the Greenock waterfront, at Kilwinning

Kilwinning

Kilwinning is a historic town in North Ayrshire, Scotland. It is known as The Crossroads of Ayrshire. The 2001 Census recorded it as having a population of 15,908.-History:...

 in Ayrshire

Ayrshire

Ayrshire is a registration county, and former administrative county in south-west Scotland, United Kingdom, located on the shores of the Firth of Clyde. Its principal towns include Ayr, Kilmarnock and Irvine. The town of Troon on the coast has hosted the British Open Golf Championship twice in the...

, and at the Inverclyde National Sports Training Centre

Inverclyde National Sports Training Centre

National Centre Inverclyde, formerly Inverclyde National Sports Training Centre is an elite athlete sports facility in Largs, North Ayrshire, Scotland.-History:...

 in Largs

Largs

Largs is a town on the Firth of Clyde in North Ayrshire, Scotland, about from Glasgow. The original name means "the slopes" in Scottish Gaelic....

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The current principal is Sue Pinder OBE.