I had seen an article detailing the closure of the plant and administrative buildings a while back now. The impressive main building was enough to lead me to pin it in case we ever were back up in Glasgow and had extra time. Upon a recent trip up north, we were checking out another spot in Paisley and happened to drive past the Chivas Brothers site. Until this point, the bottling plant had slipped my mind, but the distinctive building instantly jogged my memory. We made a mental note to head back after our first explore and see if we could find a way inside to what was left. Sadly, demolition was approved back in April 2021 and the entire bottling plant behind the admin blocks had already been flattened. Warey of diggers clearing the land behind the blocks we snuck around the workforce and tried our best to avoid any security measures and found our way inside.
The Paisley Headquarters of Chivas Brothers housed many administrative functions such as Human Resources, Finance, Customer Service, Freight & Logistics, IT and Legal Departments , and altogether is probably one of paisleys largest employers with some 450 employees. Throughout the UK Chivas Brothers has more than 30 sites and employs 1600 people and is part of the Pernod Ricard Group.
Externals of the main admin building.
The small dome on this building increased our hopes of a grand entrance and so we headed that way first to find out if our suspicions were correct. We were happy to find a beautiful, preserved entrance way with nice details.
Next door to the lobby were two decorated board rooms with lovely wood panelling and in one case, two small chandeliers still in place.
The only other point of interest on this side of the building was the canteen, which was modern, yet spacious and had a set of three arched windows that were replicated on the other side of the block.
The kitchen was mainly stripped.
Journeying back over to the opposite side led you down a long corridor. Leading off the corridor was a series of locker rooms and toilets.
Further through the site were office sections and display areas for the products bottled here. The rooms got less and less interesting and more and more modern as we progressed horizontally.
The repeating set of windows that were separated unlike the canteen.
More office areas and occupational health was all that remained for us to explore in this building.
Our next target was the other office block situated to the right of the site. At first it wasn’t exactly clear that the building was apart of the Chivas site due to the front of it seeming more like a house. It was then apparent that the boarded structure was directly linked and fenced off from workers. This raised our hopes of finding a way inside which didn’t take too long.
Some externals of the second building.
At face value, this section appeared to be less grand. From our entry point we were only greeted with modern offices. When we were deciding what to shoot out of the limited options, we finally made our way to the manor like area of the building which boasted a debatably better entrance and staircase. The design was compact with a small wooden staircase and gorgeous stained-glass window overlooking the steps. The rooms that were last used as more office spaces also had more intricate details than what we had seen prior, and the power worked in the majority of the building. It made sense for some architectural consideration to have gone into this building along with the main building.
The bay windowed front office and surrounding rooms concluded this area.
The remainder of the explore consisted off open office rooms and meeting rooms with tables and chairs still set-up.
That’s all, thanks for looking!
