Monument record MHG55558 - Ord Quartzite Quarry

J.G. Stein & Co. of Bonnybridge commenced quarrying in 1944 and this continued until 1960. Silica was extracted from the quartzite ore and used as a heat resistant substance in industrial furnaces, fire bricks, cements, boilers etc. Only the explosives store and a storage building, now used as a bothy, survive. A resident of Kilmore in Sleat worked for the company as a young man. He remembers that the ore was removed from the quarry in trucks that ran on a very short rail track to the road where it was loaded onto lorries and taken to the pier at Armadale. It was his job then to offload the ore into a waiting puffer (coastal trading boat).

Estate rental and letter books held at Clan Donald Library, The Museum of the Isles, Armadale. Ref: GD221/5783 98, 776, 805, 814 <1>