Jane,
Read this while I dig out more intersting stuff, I topok some photos down there some time ago for another forumite.
James.
1797-1866: Omoa Iron Works is erected on Cleland estate by Colonel William Dalrymple on returning to civilian life. Colonel Dalrymple’s uncle, Hew, left him the Fordal estate in Mid-Lothian, and Cleland estate in Bothwell and Shotts parishes.
At first there was only one furnace at Omoa, employing about 40 miners, 40 smelters and other workmen, and 12 horses. The furnace consumed nine tons of calcined ironstone per day, with casts every eighteen hours, yielding about two tons of pig-iron each cast.
Omoa claimed to be the second oldest iron works in Scotland (to Wilsontown). Originally prospering enough to create the new community of Omoa Town, the Omoa Works suffered a downturn through several changes in ownership and a slump in trade following the outbreak of Civil War in America in 1861. Omoa Works would change proprietors several times, the last being to Robert Stewart, Esq., of Murdoston. Shortly after the death of Robert Stewart in 1866 (see later), operations ceased, with the furnaces eventually becoming ruins.
The procurement of ironstone for the Iron Works was reported as follows:
An interesting circumstance connected with the early history of Omoa, and perhaps applicable to other iron-works at the same period, was the scarcity of ironstone and how it was procured. Any balls found in a stream, or cropping-out by its margin, were carefully collected, and in the case of Omoa, ironstone was collected in streams or otherwise by farmers and others in the neighbourhood, and taken to the ironworks and sold - many a ton went from Shotts parish in this way. The transaction was never called in question, but if practised at the present day, would be called thieving.
