RETIRED staff from an old factory returned to their former workplace to see its transformation into New York-style loft apartments.

The eight-storey listed building, which was home to Gourock Ropeworks in Port Glasgow, has seen one of the most dramatic regeneration projects in Inverclyde.

Originally a sugar refinery, it was rebuilt in 1886 to house the ropeworks, which at its peak employed more than 1500 people.

It fell into disrepair, was damaged by fire and became an eyesore after the company stopped trading in 1975.

However, a few years ago a private developer recognised its potential and converted it into loft apartments like he had seen in New York.

The building, known locally as The Mill, has been refurbished and still dominates the landscape.

John Adam, 77, a former sailmaker, worked there from 1947 until the mid-60s and remembers it as a place where the workers were well looked after.

Visiting it yesterday, he said: "The loft where we are standing used to be called the garret. They made Woodbine and Players cigarette signs for shops here.

"I worked in this building for so long I probably know more about it than anyone else. It would have been terrible to see it being demolished. It provided us with a living and we had to work hard for it."

An exhibition charting the history of the ropeworks and explaining how new life can be breathed into old buildings like this is to open soon in Port Glasgow Library.

Riverside Inverclyde, the area's regeneration agency, said the Ropeworks conversion was a "tasteful and respectful" project that should give local people "new reasons to be proud".

Chief executive Bill Nicol said: "We are using this as an opportunity to pay some respect to the area's past. It also gives us the chance to talk about the wider picture and how things are changing in Inverclyde in general."

Kay Clark, project manager with 7 John Wood Street, the voluntary group that initiated the project, said the interest had been "fantastic".

She said the group had even contacted Gourock Ropeworks in New Zealand, which was sending over nets for use in an exhibition.

In its heyday the mill produced sailcloth, canvas, cordage ropes and fishing nets.

Ropes made in the factory were fitted to the world's first steamship, the PS Comet, which was built in a Port Glasgow boatbuilding yard.

And hawsers from the mill were used on the Queen Mary, built in 1934 at the John Brown yard in Clydebank.