Ailsa Craig

An early reference to the rock is made by Sir Donald Monro, Archdeacon of the Isles who referred to the rock as "Elsay" in the 16th century.[9] The modern name of the island is an anglicisation of the Gaelic, Aillse Creag meaning "fairy rock".[2] An alternative Gaelic name is Creag Ealasaid meaning "Elizabeth's rock".[2][6] The first element, Aillse may represent Allt Shasann, "cliff of the English", mentioned in the Book of Leinster as Aldasain.[10][11]

The island is sometimes known as "Paddy's Milestone",[6][12] being approximately the halfway point of the sea journey from Belfast to Glasgow, a traditional route of emigration for many Irish labourers going to Scotland to seek work.

As a result of being the most conspicuous landmark in the channel between Ireland and Scotland, the island is known by a number of different names;

• A' Chreag: "the rock"[6]
• Creag Alasdair: "Alasdair's rock"[2]
• Ealasaid a' Chuain: "Elizabeth of the ocean"[6]
• Alasan[6]
• Carraig Alasdair: "Alasdair's Rock" (used in the Madness of Sweeney, the tale of a legendary king of Ireland).[2]

The Bass Rock is sometimes nicknamed "the Ailsa Craig of the East",[13] although its prominence in the Firth of Forth is not as great as that of Ailsa Craig in the Firth of Clyde.

Map of Ailsa Craig

The island is approximately 16 km (10 mi) west of Girvan; it is 4 km (2.5 mi)[16] in circumference and rises to a height of 340 m (1,120 ft).[5] The island is part of the administrative district of South Ayrshire, in the ancient parish of Dailly.

Geologically, Ailsa Craig comprises the remains of a Palaeogene pluton. Its prominence is due to the microgranite's hardness, making it more resistant to erosion than the surrounding Permian and Triassic sedimentary rocks into which it was intruded. The microgranite is itself intruded by a series of olivine dolerite dykes. Ailsa Craig, along with neighbouring Arran, is part of the North Atlantic Igneous Province, a widespread system of magmatic rocks formed during the initial stages of the opening of the North Atlantic Ocean.[17] Boulders of distinctive Ailsa Craig microgranite known as erratics were transported by glaciers as far afield as Donegal and Pembrokeshire.[7]

The microgranite's unusual composition and crystalline texture make it particularly hard and resistant to impact, making the island's rock a favoured material for the manufacture of curling stones.[18]

The island has a fresh-water spring but no electricity, gas, sewage or telephone connections.[19] Apart from 2 hectares (4.9 acres) sold to the Northern Lighthouse Board in 1883,[20] the island currently belongs to The 9th Marquess of Ailsa.[8] In May 2011 it was announced that the island was for sale; originally given an asking price of £2,500,000, as of March 2013, the current asking price was for offers over £1,500,000.[8][21][22] Reports in December 2013 claimed an unnamed environmental trust had placed a formal bid,[23] while in April 2014 the National Trust for Scotland was reported to be considering a bid.[24] As of 2020, the island is still owned by The Marquess of Ailsa and is leased by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds until 2050.[25][26]

The chief well on the island lies above 'the Loups' and this was used by the Northern Lighthouse Board who built a cistern there and piped the water to the lighthouse complex. The 'Horse Well' was located behind the gasworks; the 'Castle Well' stands above Ailsa Castle and then finally the Garry Loch sits higher up and once supplied water to the tenant's cottage.[27]

Four cottages, a shed and a small area of adjacent land are in the ownership of the Scottish Indian business tycoon Bobby Sandhu, purchased for £85,000 from the Northern Lighthouse Board. A five-star hotel was to be built; however, planning regulations prevented this development.[28]

The only surviving buildings on the island are the lighthouse on its east coast facing the Scottish mainland, a ruined towerhouse, that was built by Clan Hamilton to protect the area from Philip II of Spain in the 16th century[19] and the old quarry manager's house that is used by the RSPB.

Mrs Margaret Girvan ran a tearoom[29] in a wooden building that stood next to the tacksman's cottage,[30] famed for its pristine white table cloths and fresh scones. Mrs Girvan kept goats in stone-built goat rees or pens on the good grazing near Garry Loch. The feral billy goats were wont to interfere with these nanny goats and this was another reason for their demise.[29]

Fishermen seem to have used the island for centuries, first being noted in 1549[31] and it is recorded that they even at one time slept beneath sails stretched over hollows on the beach.[32]

A fishermen's cottages row was under construction in the 1840s. However, the main developer died, and the project was abandoned, with the area used instead as a walled kitchen garden until the gasworks was built.[33]

The island seems to have been a part of the Barony of Knockgarron that lay in the Parish of Dailly and the then holder, Duncan of Turnberry, Earl of Carrick established the abbey of Crossraguel and endowed it with the island of Ailsa Craig to "provide for their table".[34] The barony passed through several hands until it became the property of the third Earl of Cassilis in 1548.[20]

Ailsa Craig as drawn in the 1840s

Ailsa Craig in the background with Dunure in 1840

In 1590 the shipping of the Clyde was disrupted by pirates who were said to be Highlanders, quha lyis about Ailsay.[35]

In 1831, The 12th Earl of Cassilis became first Marquess of Ailsa, taking the title from the Craig, which was his property.

An annual hunt of the solan geese or gannets took place in the days of Robert Burns as the flesh was considered a delicacy.[36] Robert Burns's maternal uncle, Samuel Burns was involved in the solan goose trade.[36]

Railways

Remnants of the old mineral railway embankment near Kennedy's Nags

Ailsa Craig had two quite separate rail transport systems, one dated from 1886 and supplied coal, oil fuel and provisions to the lighthouse and gas works via the North Port and later the New Jetty and the other transported road stone from the quarries at Kennedy's Nags via the stone crusher to the Quarry Pier. The Northern Lighthouse Board's tramway had a section worked via a powered cableway that hauled wagons up from the North Port and later from the new jetty.

This well-built tram line is largely intact and has a gauge of three feet with junction/points at the gas works and a further set of points that led to a siding that ran down parallel to the gable end of the gas works to presumably collect the coal ash for disposal. The main line runs on down to the lighthouse and its ancillary buildings, taking a right-angled bend to run parallel to the southern end of the lighthouse buildings block.[56] This section of the line was worked by hand and at least two wagons remain at the site together with a set of spare wheels at the gas works.

Remnants of the roadstone crusher near the south foghorn

The mineral line was built by the Ailsa Craig Granite Company Ltd. in 1909 and ran from the quarry at Kennedy's Nags via the stone crusher near the south foghorn to the Quarry Pier.[57] This crudely constructed narrow gauge line was mainly horse drawn, although wagons were also moved by hand or hauled up inclines by winding engines. The mineral railway at the quarry end had a least one siding and a mobile steam crane loaded the larger granite blocks into the wagons that were transported to the stone crusher at the Trammins near the south foghorn, smaller stones being loaded and even moved by hand.[57]

Wagons or bogies were winched up to the substantial stone crusher and gravity was used to deliver the different grades of road stone to the waggons below that were then hauled by horses to the Quarry Pier via a line that ran in front of the lighthouse buildings and took a tight right-angled bend to run up the substantial stone-built incline to the storage area in preparation for delivery via sea to the mainland.[58] Curb stones and stone railway sleepers for sections of the Scotch gauge horse-drawn railway from Ardrossan to Doura were also produced.

A typical stone railway sleeper

Photographs taken in the late 19th century show the horse-drawn wagons passing in front of the lighthouse and portray the substantial railway incline and storage area. At times the production outstripped the storage capacity and a photograph shows at least three piles of different grades of road stone stockpiled in front of the lighthouse enclosure. The track at the crusher had a siding that ran to the crusher and a set of points that led to the Quarry Pier main line.[59]

The Ailsa Craig Granite Company was never a financially sound business and effectively closed in 1928.[57] The course of the mineral line is still evident near the quarries as a linear embankment that ends below Kennedy's Nag. Various artefacts of the quarry enterprise remain, including concrete blocks at Kennedy's Nag and steel and concrete remnants of the stone crusher near the south foghorn.

From the mid-nineteenth century the island has been quarried for its rare type of micro-granite with riebeckite (known as "Ailsite"), which is used to make stones for the sport of curling. As of 2004, 60–70% of all curling stones in use were made from granite from the island[60] and it is one of only two sources for all stones in the sport, the other being the Trefor Granite Quarry in Wales.[61]

Ailsa Craig produced two types of granite for curling, Blue Hone and Ailsa Craig Common Green. Blue Hone has very low water absorption, which prevents the action of repeatedly freezing water from eroding the stone.[62] Ailsa Craig Common Green is a lesser quality granite than Blue Hone. In the past, most curling stones were made from Blue Hone but the quarry is restricted by environmental conditions that exclude blasting.

Kays of Scotland has been making curling stones since 1851 and has the exclusive rights to the Ailsa Craig granite, granted by the Marquess of Ailsa. The last "harvest" of Ailsa Craig granite by Kays took place in 2013, after a hiatus of 11 years; 2,000 tonnes were harvested, sufficient to fill anticipated orders until at least 2020.[63]

Sea eagles or erne nested at the Bare Stack until 1881 when the tenant shot the last specimen, which is preserved at Culzean Castle.[64]

Pennant and others have noted that the only trees growing on the island are elders (Sambucus nigra) or bourtrees in the Scots dialect, found as a grove known as The Bourtrees at the Trammins on the southern end of the island.[65] This visitor also rather quaintly mentions that he was surprised to find three species of "reptiles" by which he meant molluscs, namely a naked black slug, the garden snail Cornu aspersum and one of the common striped snails of the genus Cepaea. He speculated that they had accidentally been brought over from the mainland secreted within vegetables.[66]

Slowworms (Anguis fragilis) are found on the island, although they suffered greatly when badgers and raccoons were introduced by Lord Ailsa. The badgers did not survive long, but the racoons bred for a number of years.[67]

A slowworm on the island

The mammal fauna included rabbits, and at one time goats, whilst pigs were bred here as food for the inhabitants. The billy goats were shot for sport in the 19th century and no longer survive; only a mounted head of one remains at the McKechnie Institute in Girvan.[68] The rabbits and goats may have been originally introduced to supply food for the fishermen and were mentioned by Pennant in 1772[29] and by the Rev Abercummie in 1688, who called them by the old name of coneys.[69]

The island is now a bird sanctuary, leased by the RSPB until 2050.[70] Huge numbers of gannets nest here.

Rats were probably introduced via shipwrecks; supposedly, a coal boat that sank offshore was the first culprit[71] and caused great harm to the nesting bird populations, with the puffins proving vulnerable to the extent of extinction as breeding birds. After a long campaign using pioneering techniques, the rats were eradicated in 1991, and now puffins are once again raising young on the island with many other benefits accruing to both the fauna and the flora.[72] It is thought that the puffins recolonised Ailsa Craig from Glunimore and Sheep Islands.

In a small glen above Ailsa Castle, a small freshwater body known as the Garry Loch is located at an altitude of 247 metres (810 ft),[73] with a depth of at least 17 feet.[74]

• In chapter 15 of Herman Melville's novel Israel Potter: His Fifty Years of Exile (1855), Ailsa Craig is portrayed as an omen.[75]
• John Keats, during his walk from London to Scotland, composed To Ailsa Rock (as the island was known then) following seeing the island.[76]

• 
  The eastern coast photographed from HMS Campbeltown.
• 
  Columnar rock formations on the south-west side of the island.
• 
  Lighthouse seen from the 16th century tower.
• 
  Summit ridge (338 m) across the Firth of Clyde.
• 
  Ailsa Craig by William Bell Scott, oil on canvas (1860)
• 
  Ailsa Craig from the west
• 
  Lighthouse with seals

Lawson in the 1890s records that a young lady once fell over the cliff near Craig Na'an; however, her Victorian style garments caught the wind like a parachute and she escaped with her life and some broken bones that soon knit back together. A visitor in a group from Stranraer was not so lucky and fell to his death on his way down from the summit.

A shocking death was that of a young boy from Girvan who was sitting amongst loose rocks, pulling out stones and throwing them into the sea when a very large boulder started to move and crushed him. The stone was too heavy to shift and help from the mainland was required to extract the body of the unfortunate victim. In 1887 a ten-year-old boy died whilst collecting eggs at the West Craigs.[77]

• List of islands of Scotland

• Clancy, Thomas Owen (2008), "The Gall-Ghàidheil and Galloway", Journal of Scottish Name Studies, 2: 19–50, ISSN 1747-7387
• Haswell-Smith, Hamish (2004). The Scottish Islands. Edinburgh: Canongate. ISBN 978-1-84195-454-7.
• Mac an Tàilleir, Iain (2003) Ainmean-àite/Placenames. (pdf) Pàrlamaid na h-Alba. Retrieved 26 August 2012.

• Lawson, Roderick (1888). Ailsa Craig : Its History & Natural History. Paisley : J & R Parlane.
• Lawson, Roderick (1895). Ailsa Craig : Its History & Natural History. Paisley : J & R Parlane.
• Monro, Sir Donald (1549) A Description Of The Western Isles of Scotland. Appin Regiment/Appin Historical Society. Retrieved 3 March 2007. First published in 1774.
• Paterson, James (1863–66). History of the Counties of Ayr and Wigton. V. – I – Kyle. Edinburgh: J. Stillie.
• Pennant, Thomas (1776). Tour in Scotland and Voyage to the Hebrides. Chester : John Monk.
• Purdie, David; McCue Kirsteen and Carruthers, Gerrard. (2013). Maurice Lindsay's The Burns Encyclopaedia. London : Robert Hale. ISBN 978-0-7090-9194-3.
• Tait, Norman T. (2005). Kirk on the Craig. Pub. Friends of the McKechnie Institute.
• Watson, W.J., The Celtic Place-Names of Scotland, (Edinburgh, 1926) reprinted, with an Introduction, full Watson bibliography and corrigenda by Simon Taylor (Edinburgh, 2004)
•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Ailsa Craig". Encyclopædia Britannica. 1 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Ailsa Craig.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ailsa Craig.

• Photo Tour of Trip to the Island
• Entry on the Maybole Home Page
• Ailsa Craig
• Index computer generated virtual panoramas
• Ailsa Craig, 1868 at the Historical Society of Philadelphia