Raasay: Ironstone processing works - view down incline

Raasay Ironstone Mine and Processing Works

This is a view down the incline on the last section of the tramway which brought ore down from the mine adits to the processing plant.

The concrete blocks in the foreground are part of the crusher house foundations and just below centre are the gantry supports from which ore would have been transported from the crusher to be fed into the calcining kilns. The gantry and crusher house can be seen in the 1917 photo in the link below. East Suisnish pier and the mountains of Skye are in the background.

Background
The two adits of Raasay No.1 ironstone Mine were situated about 2.5 km north of East Suisnish pier and worked the Jurassic (Upper Lias) age siderite and chamosite ores from 1914 to 1920. The mine was owned and developed by William Baird & Co. who also built the terraces of houses in the village of Inverarish to house the mine workers, many of whom were German prisoners of war. A tramway and incline connected the mine to the processing works (crusher, calcining kilns, gantries, loading hoppers) at East Suisnish.

A second pair of mine adits (Raasay No.2 Ironstone Mine) just north of Inverarish were also opened up around the same time but never went into proper production due to geological difficulties (faulting).

There was also a small amount of opencast outcrop mining carried out near the No.1 Mine, again around the same time.

The works were dismantled by 1943 but the site is now a scheduled protected monument.

A view of the works in 1917 is here:
geoscenic.bgs.ac.uk/asset-bank/action/viewAsset?id=1343