Former Water of Ayr hone stone mine at Dalmore on the River Ayr, a whetstone quarry and underground mine closed around 2003.
Dalmore Mine at Stair, East Ayrshire, was a hone stone mine and associated quarry on the south bank of the River Ayr, approximately 264 metres west of Dalmore House. The commodity extracted was whetstone, produced as Water of Ayr stone and Tam o' Shanter stone — types of fine-grained claystone used for sharpening blades and polishing metal. A whetstone quarry at Dalmore is recorded from at least 1789, and is depicted and described on the first Ordnance Survey six-inch map of 1860 as a worked whetstone quarry owned by William Dunn.
By the late nineteenth century a tramway connected the mine to Dalmore Mill, a water-powered dressing and polishing works 240 metres to the east. The Dalmore estate came into the possession of the Montgomerie family in 1876 and the mine continued operating under their ownership. The mine complex included a shaft with steel headframe, a winding engine house containing an electric winder, a drift mine access route from the face of the adjacent quarry, and surface tub circuits.
The mine, mill, and quarry at Dalmore had all closed by the late 1990s or around 2003 after years of falling orders, as artificial abrasives displaced the market for natural hone stones.
Whetstone has been extracted from the Dalmore site beside the River Ayr at Stair, Ayrshire, since at least the late eighteenth century. A plumbago (graphite) quarry on the estate was noted from 1791, and between 1808 and 1815 a separate graphite working was active at Laigh Dalmore. The hone stone quarry is recorded from 1789, when a Mr Smith of Mauchline held the lease to one of the quarries near Stair Wood. The stone from the Dalmore quarry was dressed and polished at Dalmore Mill, a water-powered works also known as Heron's Mill.
The first Ordnance Survey six-inch map, surveyed in 1857, depicts and names 'Dalmore Quarry (whetstone)' on the south bank of the River Ayr, adjacent to and south-west of Dalmore Mill. The Object Name Book of 1857 describes it as a whetstone quarry of claystone with a layer 40 feet below the surface dipping gently eastward, known as 'Water of Ayr Stone', and gives ownership as William Dunn Esq. The mill is described in the same source as a water-powered hone mill of ten horsepower, two storeys, slated, with the stone dressed and polished there.
By the second edition 25-inch Ordnance Survey map (1895 to 1897) a tramway had been constructed between the mill and the quarry. The current Ordnance Survey maps annotate the site as 'Mine' rather than 'Quarry', reflecting the development of underground working from the quarry face. The mine complex as recorded by RCAHMS comprised a vertical shaft with a steel headframe and winding engine house containing an electric winder, a drum and cable, and a cage. A drift mine, accessible via a sequence of steps leading down from the north side of the adjacent quarry, provided the miners' route to the workings, with stone and materials transported via the shaft. The top of the shaft was fitted with an escape route consisting of twelve ladders parallel to the shaft. A signal bell allowed the winding engine operator to communicate with the men at the pit bottom. The remains of a standby generator were also present on the surface. An earlier shaft, with the remains of a steam winding engine, was located in adjacent woodland to the south-west.
The mine produced two grades of hone stone marketed as 'Water of Ayr' stone and 'Tam o' Shanter' stone, used respectively for fine sharpening and for polishing metal plates. The hone works at Dalmore Mill, together with the associated Milton Tam o' Shanter Hone Works on the north bank of the River Ayr, supplied hone stones worldwide.
The Dalmore estate was acquired by the Montgomerie family in 1876 and the mine continued operating under their ownership through the twentieth century. The Laigh Dalmore mine is recorded as having been drained until around 1938 using a beam engine with a 20-foot beam, supplied with steam by a Lancashire boiler. In 1982 the works still employed ten people. The last owner and manager was Kenneth Montgomerie, who was interviewed at the site by RCAHMS on 16 October 2010. Hone-making became less commercially viable as artificial abrasives, including emery and carborundum (silicon carbide), became more widely used through the twentieth century. The mine works and quarry at Dalmore, along with the associated Milton hone works, had all closed by the late 1990s or around 2003, the exact closure date being unclear in the consulted sources, following years of falling orders.
