375 years ago (1650): export economy Off the west coast of modern-day Scotland lies an archipelago in the Firth of Lorne that originally comprised Seil, Luing, Ellenabeich, Easdale, Torsa, Belnahau, and Shuna. Though formed of seven main types of rock, they became known as The Slate Islands, a name that evokes their oldest geological strata. Easdale Slate was formed around 600 million years ago from soft muds and shale sediments undergoing metamorphic change in the heat resulting from Laurentia and Baltica colliding. Described as ‘dark-blue or almost black with a silky lustre’ unusually this slate is flecked with iron pyrite (fool’s gold) – a mineral that naturally forms in almost perfect cubes. By the mid-seventeenth century the Slate Islands had been acquired by the Breadalbane Campbells. Through fair means or foul, their estate extended to some half a million acres. At around just 50 acres, Easdale is amongst the smallest of the Slate Islands and might barely have registered within holdings of such size were it not for the richness of its slate deposits. The island’s slate is known to be hard-wearing and had already been used as grave- and hearth- stones for hundreds of years. It splits easily along cleavage planes, the orientation of which are exposed and easily accessible. In a pre-industrial world such qualities made it not only workable but ideally suited to the construction of floors and walls, and as lapped slates to form watertight roofs. In 1737 the then Earl of Breadalbane and Holland, John Campbell, founded the Marble and Slate Company of Netherlorn which would establish a total of seven quarries on Easdale. By 1745, 500,000 slate tiles were being produced annually. Scotland was the obvious market for these and they were indeed sold and used widely across Scotland including in prominent buildings such as Glasgow Cathedral in the Central Belt to Cawdor Castle in the Highlands. Though the ‘Holland’ of John Campbell’s hereditary title refers to an area of England in Lincolnshire rather than that region of the Netherlands, the Earldom did lay claim to ownership of land as far afield as Canada under a Baronetage of Nova Scotia – a territory thought to be derived from a series of Avalonian fragments colliding with Laurasia (and so, ironically, perhaps more geologically relatable to England than Scotland). Easdale Slate was exported to Eastern Canada despite Nova Scotia having its own slate industry, as well as India, Australia and other countries in the then British Empire. Strikingly even the names given to the various tile formats carry the language of the privilege of British peerages, with common sizes including Princess (600mm x 350mm), Duchess (600mm x 300mm), Countess (500mm x 250mm) and Ladies (400mm x 200mm). Easdale’s remarkable reach, resulting from the confluence of geological, colonial and industrial forces far beyond its control, led to it proudly proclaim to be The Island that Roofed the World .
Easdale Slate flecked with iron pyrites
Tim Ingleby
A vertically bedded slate pier
35 on site review 46 :: travel
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