Dalmore Hone Stone Works complex, Mine, Quarry and Tramway
Date 2 March 2021
Event ID 1115808
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1115808
The Quarry and Mine
The quarry and mine are no longer in use. The Dalmore Quarry which supplied the hone works, and later the mine adjacent, supplied the good quality Tam O'Shanter fine hone stone. There were also hone stone quarries at Quilkieston (NS433230, aka Meikledale 'Water of Ayr' stone) and Enterkine (dark blue Water of Ayr stone - worked by the Smith family of Tarbolton until around the early 20th century). One G Junior McPherson operated this quarry by 1900 with confusion resulting from the mutual use of 'Water of Ayr' as a trade name for different quality hone stones. Dalmore quarry produced the Tam O'Shanter stone which was finer and sold to furniture makers and jewellers and watchmakers etc.
The Quarry at Dalmore is said to have been worked since the late 18th century. The OSA states "In the lands of Dalmore...there is a species of whetstone, well known in the country as Water of Air Stone...it has been exported to different parts of Europe and America and has been found preferable to any other stone for sharpening edge tools.." (see OSA, 1791-99, vol. 6, p.114). It may be that this refers to the Dalmore Quarry rather than the others in the vicinity. By 1839 it is noted that:
For several years, both the raising and dressing of stone have been conducted with much greater care and neatness than formerly. there are two men almost constantly employed; the one in stripping and polishing, (both of which operations are operated by machinery), the other in the quarry ...there is a very a considerable quantity exported... (see NSA, 1841, vol. 5, p. 638)
By 1857 the quarry covered some 5000 sq. metres and by 1895 it covered an area of 12,000 sq. metres. This appears to have been the extent of the quarrying. The quarry was filled in with waste hone stone which was in turn recycled in the pulverising mill which was built in 1916.
The shaft was sunk in around 1870 to enable the exploit another seam of Tam O'Shanter stone. Another shaft was sunk to the south of this which was named and depicted as 'Sundrum Mine' on the OS 2nd edition map.
The headgear and later winding house survive for the mine shaft at NS43209 23234, the other shaft having been filled and the building demolished sometime in the 1960s (NS43270 23102).
Mineral Tramway
There is no tramway shown on the Ordnance Survey 1st edition map, but by1895 the tramway ran from Sundrum Mine (NS43270 23102) to the quarry (a distance of about 138 metres, and possibly about 20-inch gauge as used in the mine) tipping mine waste into the quarry at its south end. The tramway also ran from the northern shaft at NS43204 23240 for 475 metres to Dalmore Mill with hone cutting at ground floor level adjacent to the east courtyard. It is said that the tramway was abandoned in the 1940s (information from Mr Montgomerie, August 2013) with horse drawn carts and lorries used thereafter to move material from the mine to Dalmore Mill for dressing and on to customers by road and rail.
