2009

NS4178 : Remains of a lime-kiln

taken 14 years ago, near to Bonhill, West Dunbartonshire, Scotland

This is 1 of 8 images, with title Remains of a lime-kiln in this square
Remains of a lime-kiln
Remains of a lime-kiln
This is a view of the eleventh (see the list below) of twelve visited lime-kiln ruins in this area.

The first-edition OS map of this area was surveyed in 1859, and shows over a dozen "old limekilns" along a fairly short section (less than a mile) of the Murroch Burn. In December 2009, armed with a list of coordinates I had worked out from that old map, I set out to find their remains. I located ten of them; not "over a dozen", because I had (and still have) no intention of trying to locate those situated furthest downstream, largely on account of their present-day situation. The resulting photographs are those given in the list below, except for numbers 4 and 5.

In December 2020, wishing to revisit the area, I decided to dispense with all preparations and, instead, to follow my intuition, simply looking where I felt lime-kilns would be. This approach, which is my usual (and my preferred) way of finding things, almost immediately turned up two more examples, which have been included as kilns 4 and 5 in the list below; neither of them had been marked on the old OS map. This approach also turned up what I interpret as the remains of two tracks leading obliquely down the side of the glen, one heading towards kiln 5 and the other towards kiln 6. In those cases, a direct approach down the slope to take material in or out would have been too awkward. Those tracks (not marked on old maps) are mentioned below.

(My picture of site 2 is also from 2020; I had photographed it in 2009, but, given the poor and barely recognisable condition of those remains, I chose not to add that site to my list at the time. However, despite its condition, it now seems more sensible to add it to the list, for completeness, since it was marked on the old OS map. My 2020 pictures of it were a little better than my 2009 ones.)

These kilns would all have been in use at some time between 300 and 200 years ago.

The twelve sites in total are indexed as follows, where all GPS positions are (at least according to the GPS receiver itself) nominally ±5m or better, though I am very sceptical about that, all the more so given the kilns' situation deep within a steep-sided glen; in any case, the grid-references are accurate enough to allow the ruins to be located. Comments about individual ruins are to be found on their respective photo pages, linked below. Positions are likewise given as links, but are also presented as text, which has been grouped for better readability:

● Site 1: Link — NS 40860 77837 (NS4086077837).

● Site 2: Link — NS 41117 77900 (NS4111777900) (barely recognisable; see comments below).

● Site 3: Link and Link — NS 41138 77920 (NS4113877920).

● Site 4*: Link — NS 41289 77925 (NS4128977925).

● Site 5*: Link and Link — NS 41300 77955 (NS4130077955).

● Site 6: Link — NS 41455 78205 (NS4145578205).

● Site 7: Link — NS 41464 78273 (NS4146478273).

● Site 8: Link — NS 41489 78301 (NS4148978301).

● Site 9: Link and Link — NS 41560 78362 (NS4156078362).

● Site 10: Link — NS 41644 78520 (NS4164478520).

● Site 11: shown on this page, and at Link — NS 41686 78616 (NS4168678616).

● Site 12: Link — NS 41741 78697 (NS4174178697).

Numbers 4 and 5 are marked with an asterisk to indicate that they are not marked on the old OS map, but are ones that I found independently. Site 2 is crossed by a fence, and, perhaps for that reason, is barely recognisable as a lime-kiln ruin (it may or may not be substantially intact below the turf). The most surprising of the sites was number 9, where a surviving wall, intact to a height of over a metre, is fully exposed on one side.

Kilns 5 and 6 have near-identical tracks that lead obliquely down the slope towards them, on the western side of the glen. These were presumably made in connection with the lime-kilns themselves, making them, surprisingly, over 200 years old. The one leading to kiln 5 is shown in NS4178 : Path leading to old lime-kiln ruins; see there for further comments.

To return to the present photo, the circular pit shown in the foreground is the ruin at site 11 (of the twelve sites, this is the one whose remains are best exposed to view), with the Murroch Burn winding in the background; for the main description of this site, see Link

The old maps referred to above are the 25-inch-to-the-mile OS maps published in 1864, based on surveys performed in 1859. As indicated by the label "old limekiln" shown on these maps, the kilns had fallen into disuse even before the middle of the nineteenth century; the remaining pits are all the same size, and the kilns were probably all built along the same lines. They were used in small-scale industry, burning limestone to produce lime for agricultural use: see Link

Another ruined lime-kiln, further downstream than those in my list above, is particularly close to Murroch Farm, and was built to a different (and larger) design than the rest; unlike the others, that kiln appears to have been associated specifically with Murroch Farm: Link
Lime-kiln ruins beside the Murroch Burn

These lime-kilns ruins beside the Murroch Burn (see Link for the burn itself) are in the form of small green knolls, each of which has a pit, about three metres across, at its centre. See Link for an index to their positions. In a small-scale local industry (early eighteenth to early nineteenth century), limestone was burned to produce lime for agricultural use. Further downstream, a larger kiln of a different design – Link – stands on the other side of the burn, beside Murroch Farm.

The Murroch Burn

(1) The physical course of the burn

The main sources of the Murroch Burn are to be found in an area of boggy ground around NS43507992, near the hill Knockshanoch. As it flows along the south-eastern edge of Nobleston Wood, the burn is reinforced by several tributary burns that flow into it from the south-east along various glens that dissect Auchenreoch Muir (c.NS4278).

The burn then flows through the deep Murroch Glen, in whose steep sides (and those of the larger tributary glens) a geological formation called Ballagan Beds is visible: it consists of thin layers of off-white nodules of cementstone (an impure limestone) interbedded with darker, thicker, crumbly layers of silty mudstone.

The Murroch Burn emerges from the steep-sided glen to flow through a wide, shallow, pebbly channel over the fairly level grassland of Kilmalid. The burn flows into the River Leven near the present-day Blue Bridge (by means of which the A82 is taken over the River Leven). When the Blue Bridge was built, the last part of the Murroch Burn's course was altered, so that it meets the Leven a few metres further downstream than it did previously. To that end, the burn is directed through a tunnel at the south-eastern end of the bridge.

(The Blue Bridge may not have been the first crossing here: according to a leaflet produced by the Strathleven Artizans, "when the new road bridge was being erected at Pelanysflait about 1970, an ancient causeway was discovered on the bed of the river".)

(2) Lime-kiln ruins

As noted above, the burn flows through the steep-sided Murroch Glen, where cementstone nodules occur in strata. As the sides of the glen erode, these nodules tend to fall into the bed of the burn. Long, narrow ridges extend down into the glen, providing a sometimes precarious means of access to the burn. At the lower end of some of these long ridges, in grassy areas enclosed by loops of the Murroch Burn, are ruins of lime-kilns, evident as circular green mounds with a central depression. The cementstone nodules provided limestone for burning, and the burn was a ready supply of water for slaking the burnt stone; the long ridges provided a means of getting to and from the kilns, and of bringing in fuel, and taking out the slaked lime. See Link for views of these lime-kiln ruins, all of which are on the north-western side of the burn.

A little lower down, where the Murroch Burn passes Murroch Farm, is the ruin of another lime-kiln: see Link for images and for more details. That kiln was larger, and it was built to a different design; it was presumably for the exclusive use of the tenants of Murroch Farm. Unlike the other lime-kilns further upstream, this one was on the south-eastern side of the burn, on the same side as Murroch Farm itself.

(3) The name "Murroch"

Anciently, the name Dumbarton (although then spelled in other ways) had a narrower application than at present; it referred specifically to Dumbarton Rock. The name Murroch, conversely, may have had a much wider application: Dr I M M MacPhail, in his book "Dumbarton through the centuries" (1972), discusses the foundation charter of the Burgh of Dumbarton, which was "sealed by Alexander II on July 8, 1222"; he goes on to observe that "in three other charters, in 1223, 1226 and 1230, Alexander gave to the newly-founded burgh the lands of Murroch (equivalent to almost the whole of the present parish of Dumbarton) and, in addition, extensive trading privileges".

A 1238 charter (in Latin) by Alexander II, King of Scots, to Maldowen, Earl of Lennox, mentions the land and port of Murrach, with fishing rights on both sides of the River Leven as far as the land of Murrach extends (the "port of Murrach" might possibly refer to the point where the Murroch Burn flowed into the River Leven; as noted above, the point of confluence is now a few metres further downstream, as a result of the creation of the Blue Bridge.

In 1248 charter, also by Alexander II, employs a different spelling, "Murvaich", possibly indicating (this is my own tentative suggestion) a connection with the Gaelic "morbhach", meaning "land prone to sea-flooding"; the River Leven is tidal here, and an area of land on the eastern side of the River Leven, just downstream from the lower reaches of the Murroch Burn, used to be flooded twice-daily; Broadmeadow Industrial Estate – Link – now occupies much of that area. Dumbarton's earliest Burgh Records show a preoccupation with the "water works", the flood defences. One such early measure, the so-called Bishop's Water-Gang (sixteenth century), soon fell into disrepair, and part of the old burgh was reclaimed by the tidal waters; the battle to permanently reclaim "the Drowned Lands" would not be won until as late as the 1850s, in connection with the creation of the railway line through Dumbarton.

The Pont/Blaeu map of the Lennox (published in 1654, but based on surveys carried out in c.1580s-90s) does not name the burn, but uses "Morehauch" for the name of the farm; this, however, is an aberration, and later maps would revert to spellings that are closer to the present-day form "Murroch" and the early-thirteenth-century "Murrach".

John Thomson's 1823 map of Dumbartonshire, in his "Atlas of Scotland" (published in 1832; the individual map sheets are dated earlier), employs the present-day name Murroch for the farm, as do Ordnance Survey maps from the first edition (1860) down to the present day.

(4) Places shown near the Murroch Burn on various pre-OS maps:

Shown near the burn on the aforementioned 1654 Pont/Blaeu map, which was based on late-sixteenth-century surveys, are "Kirkmichel" (Kirkmichael, later called Levenside, and still later Strathleven), "Kilmandyrbrid" (Kilmalid), "Gushoom" (Gooseholm), "Headdykes" (Highdykes), "Achrioch" (Auchenreoch), "Lanhead" (Loaninghead), "Maryland" (name unchanged), and "Breadfield" (also called Broadfield, but now long-gone; see Link for comments on its location).

Roy's Military Survey of Scotland (c.1740s-50s) names neither the burn nor Murroch Farm, but it does name several places nearby: for example, "Gusom" (modern Gooseholm), "Glen", "Connelsmill", "Ardoch hill" (Ardochhill), "Cowlair" (which, if a farm, is not otherwise recorded), "Lonanhead" (Loaninghead), and "Ashentree(?)" (reading uncertain).

One of those places, Connelsmill, is (so far as I am aware) shown on no other map, but it was named after a family who dwelt there (amongst the Burgesses of Dumbarton were "Thomas Connell, son to William Connell, sometime in Connell's Mill" and "James Connell, son to Robert Connell at Connell's Mill", entered as Burgesses of Dumbarton on 18 Nov 1700 and 7 Sep 1747, respectively). It is possibly the same as the "Miln" marked on Charles Ross' 1777 "Map of the Shire of Dumbarton" as being just to the south of the (unnamed) Murroch Burn, and just to the east of the road.

(My guess at the location of Connell's Mill, based on the very meagre map evidence, on the topography needed for a mill, and on the assumption that it is the same as Ross' "Miln", places it somewhere in the vicinity of NS40137749, where a house presently stands. A building is shown there on the first-edition OS map of 1860: it is named on the map revision of c.1896 as "Strathleven Cottage". The present-day house there is called Glen Cottage, a name that seems to suggests a real or imagined connection with the "Glen" that is shown upstream of "Connelsmill" on Roy's map; this, though, may be mere coincidence.)

A 1777 "Map of the Shire of Dumbarton" by Charles Ross shows "Gateside", "Miln" and "Livenside" (Levenside/Strathleven).

John Ainslie's 1821 "Map of the Southern Part of Scotland" shows, near the burn, "Gooseholme", "Loaninghead", the oddly-named and (so far as I know) otherwise unrecorded "Peddledubs" (compare the place-name "Puddledub" — LinkExternal link and LinkExternal link — found in Perthshire and elsewhere).

James Thomson's 1823 map of Dumbartonshire shows "Gateside", "Kilmalid", "Murroch", and "Lonninhead" (Loaninghead).

Of the various places described above, several remained in existence long enough to be recorded on the first-edition OS map (surveyed in 1860), namely, Loaninghead, Gateside, Kilmalid, Gooseholm, and Ardochhill. Kirkmichael/Levenside survives in the form of present-day Strathleven House.

Maryland Farm, Highdykes Farm and Murroch Farm are still in existence.


Creative Commons Licence [Some Rights Reserved]   © Copyright Lairich Rig and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
Geographical Context: Historic sites and artefacts Period: 18th Century Ruin: Lime-Kiln Near: The Murroch Burn Category: Lime kilns other tags: Archaeology Click a tag, to view other nearby images.
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NS4178, 67 images   (more nearby 🔍)
Photographer
Lairich Rig   (more nearby)
Date Taken
Friday, 11 December, 2009   (more nearby)
Submitted
Wednesday, 16 December, 2009
Subject Location
OSGB36: geotagged! NS 4168 7861 [10m precision]
WGS84: 55:58.4576N 4:32.3171W
Camera Location
OSGB36: geotagged! NS 4167 7863
View Direction
South-southeast (about 157 degrees)
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Image classification(about): Geograph
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