THE Glasgow steamie, the women's wash-house already famous for the world's best gossip, is to be feted for an altogether bigger talking point - the industrial revolution.

Researchers working on the restoration of Glasgow Green claim the city's first public laundry was the inspiration for James Watt, whose improved design for the steam engine sparked a world-changing age of cheap power and mass production.

The event is now to be recorded in a (pounds) 300,000 education project being assembled to mark the Green's (pounds) 15m renovation.

The bizarre birth of industrial capitalism will be described in specially created CD-Roms for schools, and at new interpretation centres at the Green and the nearby St Andrew's in the Square church.

A headless stone sculpture of Watt, which currently stands at the east end of the Green, will be ''recapitated'' by a Scottish artist.

Born in Greenock in 1736, Watt was first struck by the power of steam as a 15-year-old, as he sat and watched a kettle boil.

A first-hand account of the moment written by his cousin was auctioned for (pounds) 15,600 last week in a (pounds) 1.9m sale of Watt archives. However, it was not until 1765, when Watt was a 29-year-old technician at Glasgow University, that the twin rooms of the Glasgow steamie inspired him to improve on the early, hopelessly inefficient, Newcomen steam engine.

Watt later described going for a stroll on the Green one ''fine sabbath afternoon'', thinking about how to better the design.

A few yards past the wash- house, he said ''the whole thing was arranged in my mind''.

Peter Downing, principal landscape officer with Glasgow City Council's land services, who researched the Green's history, said the similarities between the steamie and Watt's design were ''too much of a coincidence''.

At the time, the building consisted of two large steam-filled rooms, each seating about 200 women and their wash tubs, either side of a chimney stack.

Watt's answer for the engine was to add a second chamber, or condenser, mirroring the design of the building.

The change quadrupled the engine's efficiency and when Watt later connected the piston to a flywheel, the industrial revolution was under way.

Mr Downing said: ''If you have a creative soul, every idea is some kind of stimulation, either from memory or observation.

''Watt was thinking of steam and vessels, he walked past these two big vessels at the steamie, and then a few

yards later he had his idea of adding a second vessel to the engine.

''The Glasgow steamie was the inspiration for the industrial revolution.''

Neil Baxter, interpretation consultant on the Glasgow Green renewal project, said: ''We are claiming a lot of history for the Green that people were not aware of and, obviously, the single biggest event in terms of world history was Watt's invention of the steam condenser.

''It allowed manufacturing on a scale that was unprecedented.

''And it was all down to the association of ideas as Watt walked past the steamie and the women trampling their clothes.''

The new work at Glasgow Green is part of a (pounds) 15m effort to turn the 553-year-old park from a rundown no-go zone back to a garden for the city centre. Half the money has been spent bringing the 115-year-old Doulton Fountain, the world's largest terracotta fountain, back to former glory and relocating it to the front of the Winter Gardens.

Another (pounds) 1m was used to remove toxic waste buried under the Green and fill in 18 world war two air-raid shelters found in a ground survey of the 130-acre park.