Selecting the Stones - The Stones and the Stars: Building Scotland's Newest Megalith - page 165

F IG . 6.1 Beltmoss (Back of the Hill) Quarry (Photo by author)
enough stones, but at great cost because they supplied a specialty
market and would have to be paid not to shape them, to another
order, once they had been extracted. They also gave us the free
advice that limestone was unlikely to last, exposed on a hilltop
(and indeed a later, symbolic limestone circle outside the Space-
guard Observatory in Powys, Wales, is already showing consider-
able erosion - Fig. 7.30 ). At Hillhouse Quarry, above my home
town of Troon, we were given shelter during blasting in the quar-
rymaster's house, and when we met him, he was even prepared in
principle to give us access to a virgin face and allow David Proffitt
to blast it, though they would then have to diversify and find an
outlet for black powder products, because it would be unsafe to
use another explosive on it forever after. That one would poten-
tially be so costly for the quarry, that we promised not to come
back unless there was no other choice.
Finally, however, the search ended at Beltmoss quarry
(Fig. 6.1 ), on Tak-ma-doon Road, Kilsyth (known locally as the
Back of the Hill Quarry), a family business making curbstones and
paving stones (Fig. 6.2 ) , the last black powder quarry in Scotland
if not in Britain. Kilsyth was originally Kelvesith, 'Kelvin-lands,'