Soho Foundry - Today

Today

It is now the home of Avery Weigh-Tronix (formerly Avery Berkel), who make weighing scales. The site includes William Murdoch's cottage and overlooks Black Patch Park.

There is a small museum there, open only by appointment.

The grade II listed Pooley gates, of cast iron, are marked with "a Liver bird above ropework draped with cloth, flanked by nautical symbols including oars, flags and bugles, ships' wheels and intersecting dolphins". A plaque reads: "These gates were cast by Henry Pooley and Son about 1840 for the Sailors' Home, Liverpool. (See "Liverpool Sailors' Home"). The Avery and Pooley Foundries were amalgamated in 1931". There was an active campaign to return these gates to Liverpool, resulting in the approval by Sandwell Council in March 2011 of an application to return them. After restoration the gates were returned to Liverpool on 8 August 2011 and were re-erected under the name "The Sailors Home Gateway" in the pedestrian section of Paradise Street in Liverpool One, close to the original site of the Sailors' Home.

The building is a Grade II* listed building. The gates and adjacent canal bridge are Grade II listed.

The oldest working steam engine, built here, is the Smethwick Engine built to recover water used in the nearby canal locks at Smethwick Summit, and now in the Thinktank museum.

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