Archaeology InSites

As you approach Charlestown limekilns, you spy a masonry structure of impressive scale and quality. But it is not a fine house nor a temple to textile wealth, but part of an 18th century industrial complex begun in the late 1750s to maximise the limestone, lime and coal production of the local landowner of the time, Charles Bruce, the 5th Earl of Elgin after whom the village and lime kilns are named. The limekilns at Charlestown were once the largest in Scotland and may arguably have been part of one of the biggest complexes of its kind in the UK. It produced one of the most important commodities of the 18th and 19th centuries in Scotland - lime.

The Tar Works at Kames to the south west of the village of Muirkirk in Ayrshire was founded by the British Tar Company in 1786 to work Lord Dundonald’s patent for the manufacture of tar from coal. As a by-product of the manufacturing process, the Tarworks produced large quantities of coke that could be used as fuel, leading to the establishment of an Iron Works a year later and providing the catalyst for the industrial development of the moorland around the village.