Japan’s world heritage status bid for Scots crane

A Scottish crane that survived a World War II bombing is to form part of a bid for world heritage status from Unesco.

The Scots-built crane in Nagasaki, Japan. Picture: Contributed

Originally built in Motherwell more than a century ago, the cantilever crane has been a fixture of the Nagasaki’s skyline for over a hundred years, and remains in perfect working order.

It is one of 28 sites city officials say were crucial in the country’s industrial rise in the late 19th and early 20th century.

Dr Miles Oglethorpe, an advisor to Japan’s January bid who also works for Historic Scotland, told the Herald: “It’s great to see such an important icon of Scottish engineering prowess standing so proudly in among Mitsubishi’s bustling Nagasaki shipyard.

The fact that it is still working and in such good condition reflects both the skills of the Japanese workforce over more than a century, and the respect they have for such a wonderful historic structure.

“It’s more than appropriate that Japan should be putting forward a nomination for World heritage that celebrates its unique industrial heritage, and all the more poingnant for us, given the key role SCots played in helping Japan emerge from isolation to become a modern nation in the late 19th and early 20th century.”