Hotel Singular Musuem

Sheep farming came to Patagonia from the Falkland Islands in the late nineteenth century. In 1915 Puerto Borries was chosen as the site for an abattoir and cold storage plant. For nearly 60 years the plant processed sheep for their meat, wool, leather and fat. The meat was refrigerated and shipped from the jetty on the sound to Europe, mostly to Britain. In the 1970s the plant closed as it was no longer viable. However, the current owners, the grandchildren of its founder, John MacLean Fraser, resurrected the site in the 2000s as a hotel and an industrial museum .

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These images are of the Boiler and Engine Rooms, the main part of the museum. At its peak, the plant processed about 90,000 sheep per month. The boilers ran night and day, fuelled by coal and wood. They produced steam that was routed to the Engine Room to operate the cooling system for 12 freezers and 5 cold storage rooms as well as generate electricity at 300 kilowatts/ hour for the whole complex. The refrigeration system used ammonia pumped through a network of coils and valves. The storage areas were large enough to hold up to 180,000 carcasses and 850,000 tons of final goods. As you will see from the name plates, most the machinery was supplied by British manufacturers.

Part of the Engine Room

The compressor used to create constant pressure from the steam generated in the Boiler Room

The fly wheel of the compressor

Part of the refrigeration plant

Part of the furnace

Another part of the plant

Some of the numerous valves...



...more valves to regulate the transmission of ammonia for refrigeration

Part of the ammonia compressor
(In 1894 Alfred Haslam established a patent for an ammonia compressor,
most notable for its low level of leakage, enabling food to be transported in refrigerated ships. 
By the start of the twentieth century he held a virtual monopoly of British marine meat refrigeration.)

The name plate on the electricity generator
(George Belliss was an industrial engineer and Alfred Marcom was a Royal Navy
steam engineer. In the early twentieth century, their company, Belliss and Morcom
specialised in electricity generators using steam engines paired with dynamos.
The business is now a division of the Gardner Denver Group, headquartered in Milwaukee.)

Part of the electrical switch gear
(Brookhirst was established in 1898 by John Hirst, a pioneer in electrical switch gear and
his partner Percy Brook. The firm was based in Chester at the time this gear was supplied
to the cold storage plant. It is now part of Cutler Hammer Europa.)

Part of the refrigeration equipment
(U D Engineering were specialists in industrial refrigeration.)

A valve on one of the furnaces, producing the steam that powered the rest of the plant
(Hopkins & Co were one of the forerunners of the Consett Iron Co,
makers of furnaces on Teeside.)



A gyrometer is a device that measures the number of revolutions of a rotating axis.
(W H Bailey was based in Salford and supplied equipment to Belliss & Morcom - see above.)

Part of the boiler
(Babcock & Wilcox was founded in 1867 by Stephen Wilcox and George Babcock to manufacture and market Wilcox’s patented water tube boiler and became a leader in boiler making and power generation.)

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