A Walk Round Wilsontown

(What's left of) Wilsontown Inn as seen from approach

So, after a pretty heavy week and having to replace a smashed laptop screen (thanks Spelectronics, I'm lost without a laptop)I finally managed to do something productive.

How it once looked...

...Versus how it looks now...

I have been out to Wilsontown (Forestry Commission)before out of curiosity. It is an old Iron mining village nearby where I live in central Scotland that has been preserved to a certain extent. Really it's a nature reserve now, home to some lovely animals which I will attempt to spot for you in the summer and the property of the Forestry Commission. As it was I was walking the dog at another local beauty spot (Braidwood Pond, Carluke Gazette) and met a man who was born and raised in Wilsontown. He was able to tell me that it was a true iron mine and they pulled the ore out of the ground and processed it in the same place...so I had to go back for another look.

looking over the car park where they added a picnic area

It was cold, it was dreary, it was a typical Scottish January out on the moors that make up most of the surrounds to Wilsontown nowadays. The theory I am working with is that where you find Iron deep down in the Earth's crust, is the same area that you find gold. Now people have published all sorts of theories (Science Daily) on this and I find it interesting. It happens that when iron miners do find deposits of placer gold they tend to be so small that they are not worth commercial mining, So...I put two and two together and arrived at the idea that where there are iron mines there might well be gold in the water... even though Geology Scotland says there are no gold faults between the lower highlands and the southern uplands...

Ya never know unless ya try, right?

kai at the start of the pathway.

Unfortunately since this area is a nature reserve there is no way in all the hells I would attempt to pan it. Upstream or downstream perhaps, but having checked it out the water is still pretty polluted. There is a lot of rust, iron waste, smelt, rubbish and all sorts of bits of yuck in there that you don't want to put your hands anywhere near. Certain places are not safe to pan because Tetanus.

What I did find, however, was an astonishing little site where you can walk around and get a real feel for what a working mine might have operated like. You can still see the piles of tailings from where discarded rock was dumped on site. Some of the buildings are still standing, although they are unanimously in a state of disrepair. The best preserved of these is the Wilsontown inn, probably the last building to fall silent when the site closed down in 1955. Scotland suffered a huge industrial setback around that time that saw many of our industries suffer... It was a long, bleak period for us that culminated in the emergence of Thatcher. But the less said about that the better. This is not a political blog!

a commemoration of the achievements of the workers

There is some interesting artwork cast into metal on the gates that makes for nice photography...probably...if you don't have shaking hands and no eye for it...Kai had a good sniff around though. As you walk around you come across conveniently placed noticeboards that tell you a little about the history (3D CAD). A total of three inventions were created here, one of which was the warm air introduced into the furnace made better iron than cold air, which all ironworks previously believed. The forestry commission did well to commemorate this little piece of history in plaque form when they planted the trees back in the early 90's.

Definitely of interest to my rock loving brain was the format of the land. Even as you turn the first corner you can see the dips and furrows where things used to be. At times there are circular dips in the ground that you cannot explain and there are signs warning you to stick to the path. This whole area is subject to pitfalls (there was one in Glasgow very recently) where the ground simply caves in due to the tunnelling underneath. At any rate when you look over the land you can see the shape of how things used to be.

There is a lot of history in this place, from the wounded burn that runs red in places to the other side of the car park, where people still live and where nature has thoroughly reclaimed the site. It seems so strange that one side of the site should be desolate moor and the other should be beautiful natural habitat for birds, butterflies and wildflowers.

Also of interest are the bits an pieces of buildings that are all that remain of this once proud community. People grew up here. Children made friends and played among the tailings. Families were raised on the bread and butter this mine provided. Yet losing it to time is beautiful in its own right. We are moving on from what we once were maybe. Maybe not. Maybe it's just another used up natural resource. In any case the Wilsontown inn still stands proudly, its own little placard declaring it was thirsty work in Wilsontown. I'll bet it was. I'll bet we'll never know exactly how thirsty, either.

The Wilsontown Inn, location for that horror film I'll script one day.

Scottish Jasper (and my failure to find it)

So it turns out that minerals in Scotland are a lot more popular than I thought they would be. For this reason I have been toying with the idea of starting a separate blog entirely for my writing work. I had wanted to do it the other way around since this is the 'Katriona Writes' page but there are too many established readers now to change it up. So any good titles you have for a writing page in the comments please!

This Monday I went on a wet and windy quest into the Campsie Fells in an effort to find Jasper. Apparently it is one of the most abundant minerals in the area but that didn't help me any in terms of identification. I went armed only with the knowledge that you have to chip it out of rock and that it is red, yellow, blue and green.

Yeah the sign says it all...

What makes Scottish Jasper so special is that it comes in mixed patterns of red and yellow. Anywhere else in the world it comes out of the rock as either one or the other; but ins Scotland it can be streaked or spotted with both colours. Once again I was left in awe of this country's ability to produce world class minerals... if I could find any.

My research showed that the divide in colour of the Jasper is much like the staining I have found on other minerals in both the lower highlands and the southern uplands. A high presence of pyrite and other minerals in the soil leads to all shades of yellow, red, orange and pink minerals which would otherwise be white.

In the photo opposite you can see four minerals. The one on the left is Calcite druse, the other three are all Cairngorm Quartz. As you can see, it might be difficult to identify the chunk on the right and the bottom piece as Cairngorm Quartz simply because of the colour. This deep orange or yellow form is sometimes called a Cairngorm Citrine, so I'm pretty happy to add a few to the collection.

Anyway - back to the Jasper. My research showed up that it can be found throught the Crawford Moors (that's what they used to call the Leadhills/Wanlockhead/Crawford/Crawfordjohn areas back in the day) as well as in the Campsie Fells. It is mentioned in the Scottish Agates Jasper section that of all the recorded other places Jasper is found were 'dry' when the team there went to check.The culmination of this meant that I ended up at the Car Park in the Sky in the Campsies in really terrible weather, armed with a rock hammer and one dog.

Jasper still in the rock, someone already pinched most of it.

There are a number of walks and hikes you can take in this area and, had the weather been better, I would be keen to try them out. As it was I had to make do with reaching the nearest rock faces to the car park and having a gander. Contrary to the title I DID actually find some, and brought a small chip of it from the rock home with me...among another ten potential Jasper samples which I then mixed together...DOH!

Luckily I took a photo to prove it...

Fintry Kirk - something creepy that caught my eye on the way

Kai, dam unknown (I got lost)

So the result is a distinct lack of Scottish Jasper for the moment. I will definitely add it to my list of very interesting minerals though. As you can see from the colour it is fantastic in its natural form.It seems such a shame to chip it away from there.

The conclusion? I don't know if I have the heart for Scottish Jasper... but I have heard that you find Jasper-like Agate in Burn Anne... onwards and upwards, I always say!

(Jan 2023 update - Now that I can spot it I find more jasper than anything else. Check your nearest river, you are bound to find it.)

Happy New Year!

Happy N'airday from Lokai and I!

The best piece of Galena of the year

So every year I like to release a story for Christmas, publish a new piece or the likes, all to say thank you to the dedicated fans out there. This year has been hellish, hectic and has seen me left prepared for presents but totally unprepared for writing.

So instead of the usual obligatory story I thought I would save some time and put up a highlight of the 'best bits' of my 2018. I have a whole collection of awesome Scotland photo's I never found a home for yet, so I'll put some of them up and give a little background.

I've had about fifteen trips out to Leadhills and Wanlockhead to go gold panning. My last trip was fairly unsuccessful but my first ever trip produced this solid piece of pyrite and galena to the right, one of my favourite finds, even if it wasn't worth money.

Back in July I finally got the hang of driving and the nerves died down. I've only had my license a year so getting out and about is a new thing for me. The beautiful sights of Scotland ended up overriding all else to become the focus of this blog. There are loads of sights I visited where I didn't find any rocks. Auchenstarry Quarry in Kilsythe was one, with a sheer cliff face for climbers and a local fishing spot for those less daring.

I have since found out that there is an old castle (Colzium Visitor Centre) nearby to this so it makes for good tourism.

My first Gold flake! August 2018.

In July and August I spent a lot of time out and about gold panning and rock hunting. On the right you can see the first flake I found, still in the pan and barely visible - but what a feeling! Some secrets will come to the grave with me but what I will tell you is it didn't come from Leadhills or Tyndrum, thus proving that off-the-beaten-track is sometimes best.

I also took a trip out especially to a town called Crawford. My family has big roots there since generations of us took camping holidays there as kids. In the old days they would have 'the men's tent' and 'the women's tent', but fortunately when I was old enough to join in my Nana already had a caravan! Anyway I traced down an old tree that stuck out from memory and snapped a few shots while I was there.

the Crawford creepy tree!

Of course, I had to send the photo on the left to my mum just so she could see I was back there. I've since found out that all five of us kids have driven back out there at some point, which is kinda nice.

In the end of August I finally finished Quicksilver; Dark Science, part three. It took me about a year of working quietly in the background. I also have a kitchen job and work as a freelancer so I have zero free time for anything. That being said a book is written a little at a time. If you do a hundred words a day you will have ten thousand words in a hundred days... so if you keep writing a paragraph a day you will get there in the end.

Kai on the Wanlock Water in July

Other writing success was managing to hold down my ongoing ghostwriting work despite life trying its darnedest to put me off. Getting focused enough to actually routinely write in my blog and to send out short stories as I went has been tricky but do-able. In March I contributed a short story to Rinoa Cameron's Fangs and Broken Bones Collection. In early July I helped a friend out editing his LEGAL guide to Glamping, which was interesting. I discovered I quite like editing now that I have had enough experience with it to know what I am doing.

I edited together 101 Self Care Suggestions in January/February and also , somehow, managed to find time to edit a book of poetry that was donated randomly to ESTEEM Clydesdale, the mental health charity I worked with before my free time dissolved. The book is called 'There is a reason for tomorrow' and all of the proceeds go entirely back to the charity... so if there is one you are looking to buy make it that!

Had a random trip to a Blacksmiths in October!

Well, after all of that it is no wonder I'm so exhausted! Moving forward readers can expect the final instalment of Dark Science by the time the winter rolls round again. I have a Sci-Fi book about the end of the world on the back burner and I expect to work with KC again at some point. I have my first English lesson booked in the diary to tutor a friend's niece, I'm still working in the kitchen and I will still be rock picking!

What I need is locations, beauty spots and photographs from various places in Scotland to go and see. If they are spooky or contain crystal specimens then hook a girl up! Answers in the comments section please!

So once again, Sorry for the lack of a Christmas/New Year story. At this rate it will be July before I get around to it so I wouldn't hold your breath. All that remains to be said is that 2018 was a blast. Let's all carry on the momentum into next year and make it even better than the last!

Happy New Year all; may the roof above ye ne'er fall in and the friends aboot ye ne'er fa' oot!