Thread by @cocteautriplets

Funnily enough I was looking this place up the other day as there's a few photos of it on Flickr in its final days.

https://twitter.com/Scranlife/status/1308652327373606912

Here is in in 1992, the photographer suggests demolition was as late as 1997. flickr.com/photos/cagiva1…

At a guess, that "sandstone" front was mock, and was actually a showcase of the concrete and cement wares of its occupants, Currie & Co.

This 1912 advert suggests at this point they were "established over a century", as the successors to A. M. Ross & Sons, Slate Merchants. They were headquartered in Glasgow and had offices and depots in Greenock, Edinburgh and Leith also

According to Grace's Guide (gracesguide.co.uk/Joseph_A._Curr…), the Edinburgh & Leith operation was until 1898 a separate operation called Joseph A. Currie & Co., with an office at 31 Bernard Street, Leith (coincidentally, later HQ of Christian Salvesen)

Joseph A. Currie's advert describes themselves as the agents for "I. C. Johnson & Co.'s London and Newcastle Portland and Roman Cements, Etc.", which used an elephant for their brand

The eagle connection came from the Eagle Portland Cement Co. of London, for whom the west-coast Currie & Co. were the sole Scottish licensee. This 1910 Dundee PO advert shows the business has expanded to Tayside and capitalised on the Eagle brand

This engraving from an 1888 advert from the Glasgow PO directory shows that their stables at St. James' street was also an Eagle Buildings.

Currie's Edinburgh HQ later moved to 19 Rose Street... What do we see here to this day? Still the Eagle Buildings!

Anyway I can't actually find out which of the London cement makers used "Eagle" as its brand, it seems to be associated with a company in Kallamazoo, Michigan and also now in the Philippines. Isaac of Elephant Brand was one of the fathers of the modern cement industry though.

(Long story short, Isaac Charles Johnson was already involved in the cement industry and he and his business partner combined their knowledge to painstakingly reverse-engineer the composition and make a better product that got around the existing patents)