Ailsa Craig (Scots: Ailsae Craig; Scottish Gaelic: Creag Ealasaid) is an island of 99 ha (240 acres) in the outer Firth of Clyde, 16 km (8.5 mi) west of mainland Scotland, upon which microgranite has long been quarried to make curling stones. The now-uninhabited island comprises the remains of a magmatic pluton formed during the same period of igneous activity as magmatic rocks on the nearby Isle of Arran.
The island, colloquially known as “Paddy’s Milestone”, was a haven for Catholics during the Scottish Reformation in the 16th century, but is today a bird sanctuary, providing a home for huge numbers of gannets and an increasing number of puffins.
The only surviving buildings on the island are the lighthouse on its east coast facing the Scottish mainland, a ruined towerhouse built by Clan Hamilton to protect the area from Philip II of Spain in the 16th century, and the old quarry manager’s house that is used by the RSPB. The island has a fresh-water spring but no electricity, gas, sewage or telephone connections.
The chief well on the island lies above ‘the Loups’, and this was used by the Northern Lighthouse Board which built a cistern there and piped the water to the lighthouse complex. The ‘Horse Well’ was located behind the gasworks; the ‘Castle Well’ stands above Ailsa Castle, and finally the Garry Loch sits higher up and once supplied water to the tenant’s cottage.
Fishermen seem to have used the island for centuries, first being noted in 1549 and it is recorded that they even at one time slept beneath sails stretched over hollows on the beach.
A row of fishermen’s cottages was under construction in the 1840s. However, the main developer died, and the project was abandoned, with the area used instead as a walled kitchen garden until the gasworks was built.
