Old photograph of cottages in Furnace, a village in Argyll and Bute, on the west coast, on the north shore of Loch Fyne, Scotland. Furnace is around eight miles south west of Inveraray on the A83 road. It is unusual for a West Highland village in having an industrial past in addition to the usual focus on agriculture and fishing. Industrial activity was led by three main businesses: the iron furnace, the powdermills and the quarry. The Gaelic poet Evan McColl was born in 1808 at Kenmore, a township on the northern fringe of Furnace. McColl, who wrote The Mountain Minstrel, died at the end of the 19th Century. A stone cairn was erected in his memory at Kenmore, on the rocks above the loch and was unveiled in 1930 by the Duke of Argyll. Former residents of Furnace include the late Duncan Williamson, a celebrated traditional storyteller, author of The Horsieman and a member of Scotland's gypsy travellers. Williamson's first wife was his cousin, Jeannie Townsley with whom he had ten children. There are still members of the Townsley family living in Furnace. An American academic, now Dr Linda Williamson, became his second wife and guided his career as a celebrated and published storyteller. They had two children. The Tower of London’s first female Beefeater, Moira Cameron, appointed in 2007, is from Furnace, living above the village at Goatfield.
All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.
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