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MANY visitors to
Gairloch, and not a few of the inhabitants, will learn with astonishment
that the manufacture of iron was carried on in the parish from remote times,
and that there are still abundant remains to testify to the magnitude and
importance of the industry. There are many places in this wild and
picturesque High land district where are to be seen to this day large heaps
of slag and dross, and remains of blast-furnaces or bloomeries; whilst many
acres of arable ground, as well as of uncultivated moorland, are still
thickly strewn with fragments of charcoal and of several kinds of iron ore.
The remains of ironworks examined
in Gairloch may be roughly divided into two classes, viz :—(i) The ancient
ironworks, of which there are no historical records extant; and (2) The
historic ironworks of Loch Maree.
The ancient ironworks or bloomeries
are the subject of our present chapter. Some of them appear, as we should
expect, to belong to a later period than others, but nothing can be said
with precision about the date of any of them. They will be described in Part
I., chap. xx.
There are some interesting notes on the subject of
ancient Highland ironworks in the curious book entitled "Remarks on Dr
Samuel Johnson's Journey to the Hebrides, by the Rev. Donald N'Nicol, A.M.,"
published in 1779, an^ extracted in Appendix G. Mr M'Nicol does not give his
authorities, but there is ample ocular demonstration of the truth of his
statement, that " the smelting and working of iron was well understood and
constantly practised over all the Highlands and Islands for time
immemorial." Other writers have expressed the opinion, that iron was made
throughout Great Britain long before the Roman invasion.
Perhaps a coin now in my
possession, which was found some years ago in a field on the bank of the
river Went in Yorkshire, near large quantities of ancient heavy iron slag,
may be taken as giving some clue to the date of the older ironworks. It is
an ancient British coin of the type of the quarter stater of Philip II. of
Macedon. The British coinage is supposed to have been in existence at least
as far back as 150 B.C., and this is one of the early types.
The querns frequently found in all
parts of the Highlands shew that the ancient inhabitants grew some
corn,—that they had some acquaintance with "the staff of life." It seems a
reasonable inference, that they used iron implements for tilling their lands
and securing their crops. It is certain that some iron weapons, tools, and
implements, besides those employed in agriculture, were in use in the
Highlands in those old days. An iron axe-head, of the shape of the bronze
celt figured among our illustrations, and with the aperture for the handle
similarly in a line with its axis instead of at right angles to it, was
found in 1885 in the garden at Inveran ; its remains are much eaten by rust,
but there is enough to shew that this iron axe is of an old type. It may be
objected, that if iron implements for peace or war were extensively used in
ancient days there would be more relics of them. The obvious reply to such
an objection is, that iron is so liable to oxidation that most of the
smaller iron articles of ancient times must have perished from that cause.
Many of the small masses of rust-cemented gravel and earth, found
everywhere, may have originally had for their nucleus an ancient iron
implement,, or a fragment of one. If it be allowed that the Picts or other
early inhabitants of the north used iron tools and weapons, the question at
once arises,—Where and how did they procure them ? The remains of the
ancient class of ironworks supply the answer. Those so-called savages well
knew where to procure iron, and how to fabricate from it the articles they
required,—another proof that the Picts were by no-means the uncivilised
barbarians that some people suppose.
The ancient ironworks of Gairloch
were probably not more numerous than those of some other parts of the
Highlands and Islands. There is little doubt but that many of the remains,
both in Gairloch and elsewhere, have been obliterated by the husbandman, or
concealed by overgrowth of heather and other plants. In many places
throughout Sutherlandshire, Ross-shire, and Inverness-shire, as well as in
other Scottish counties, there are large quantities of iron slag. The
Inverness Scientific Society have examined remains of ancient iron-smelting
near Alness in Easter Ross. The Rev. Dr Joass, of Golspie, and Mr D. William
Kemp, of Trinity, have to a certain extent investigated some Sutherlandshire
remains. There are also quantities of slag on the Braemore estate, on the
shores of Loch Rosque between Achnasheen and the eastern boundary of
Gairloch parish (Part IV., chap, hi.), and in many other parts of Wester
Ross, as well as in the island of Soa off the west coast of Skye, and many
other places.
At the iron-smelting works near Alness a native
hematite iron ore was used, as well as what is termed bog iron. Bog iron is
also believed to have been used at a bloomery near Golspie, Sutherlandshire.
This bog iron appears to have been commonly employed by the ancient
ironworkers ; it was extracted by the action of water from ferruginous rocks
and strata, and was accumulated at the bases of peat bogs. In process of
time granular masses of oxides of iron were thus formed, sometimes covering
a considerable area. Within the parish of Gairloch there are still
quantities of bog iron to be seen, apparently formed exactly in the manner
described. The localities will be stated in Part L, chap. xix. No bog iron
has been found in proximity to any of the remains of ironworks; probably the
iron-smelters consumed all that was conveniently near the scenes of their
operations. In the neighbourhood of all the remains of ironworks in Gairloch
are found ferruginous rocks and shales, or rust-coloured earths. The best
samples of these rocks have on analysis yielded but eight per cent, of
metallic iron, and the rust-coloured earths are by no means rich in the
metal. But there can be no doubt that bog iron was formerly present in the
vicinity of these rocks, shales, and •earths; and the analyses of the
ancient iron slags prove to demonstra tion that such bog iron was the ore
used at the ancient bloomeries.
Mr W. Ivison Macadam, analytical
chemist of Edinburgh, is hopeful that the analyses he has undertaken may in
course of time throw more light on the methods and productions of the
ancient ironworkers. It is not probable that we shall ever know much of
their history. According to the Rev. Donald M'Nicol they made iron "in the
blomary way, that is by laying it under the hammers in order to make it
malleable, with the same heat that melted it in the furnace." In the present
day the processes of smelting iron and of producing malleable iron are
separate and distinct; these ancient artisans probably combined the two. The
slags produced at their furnaces contained a large proportion of metallic
iron. Mr Macadam has found fully fifty per cent, of iron in most of the
samples of ancient Gairloch slags he has analysed, and at some modern
ironworks quantities of ancient slag have actually been found worth
resmelting. The wasteful richness of the old slags can be easily accounted
for; the ancient methods of smelting were comparatively imperfect, labour
was cheap, the iron used cost nothing, and the forests whence was derived
the charcoal for smelting it were apparently inexhaustible, whilst the
business was no doubt carried on more for the supply of local and immediate
wants than as a branch of commerce. If the ironworkers could obtain by their
primitive processes enough iron to supply their own requirements, they would
naturally be careless of the amount of metal wasted.
The fuel universally used for
iron-smelting, until far into the eighteenth century, was wood-charcoal, and
even to the middle of the nineteenth century it was still employed at two
blast-furnaces in Scotland. Every part of the Highlands, not excepting the
parish of Gairloch, was clothed with dense forests of fine timber. Far up
the mountain slopes, and down to the rocky shores of the sea, the fir, oak,
and birch flourished in wonderful and beautiful profusion. There is no
poetic license, no picturesque exaggeration in this statement. Everywhere
the relics of trees are to be seen to this day, and much of the timber used
by Gairloch crofters in roofing their dwellings and for other purposes
consists of branches found underground. The disappearance of the great
Caledonian forest has been accounted for in several ways; some have
conjectured that a vast conflagration or series of conflagrations destroyed
it; others think that its destruction was more gradual, and resulted from
the labours of the charcoal burners and similar doings. In Gairloch there
are charred stumps still to be seen preserved in peat bogs, that support the
conflagration theory; but there is also widespread evidence of extensive
charcoal
burnings, so that there must be
some truth in both these modes of accounting for the destruction of the
woods. Some localities of charcoal burnings will be mentioned in Part I.,
chap. xx.
All the ancient Gairloch ironworks are in the vicinity
of burns. This fact raises a strong inference that the older ironworkers,
like their historic successors, utilised the water-power afforded by
adjoining streams for the purpose of working machinery. The Rev. D.
M'Nicol's statement, already quoted, that hammers were used to | produce
malleable iron confirms the inference; and the remains of | dams or weirs,
and other expedients for augmenting the water-power, convert the conjecture
into an established fact. It appears certain, then, that heavy hammers
worked by machinery, with water for the motive power, were used in remote
times,—another testimony to the ingenuity and mechanical skill of the
ancient inhabitants of the Highlands. The tuyere for a furnace-blast found
at Fasagh {see illustration) is another evidence of that skill.
The reader must please remember
that the ancient ironworks referred to in this chapter are quite distinct
from the historic series to which our next is devoted. |
