IN THE BEGINNING
Until the mid nineteenth century Kemnay was a virtual backwater with its inhabitants scraping a living from the land – land that for the most part was rather poor. The Kintore to Tillyfourie Turnpike had been opened around 1827 with toll houses at the present day Kintore Crossroads and at Monymusk – gates were fitted at these points and tolls were payable to gain access to the next part of the road.
This quiet rural solitude changed in the 1850s as the Alford Valley Railway began to snake its way up the glen from Kintore bringing great changes with it. So great was the faith of its promoters that whereas an agricultural lease was generally for nineteen years, a building lease was for ninety nine years, the leases granted for the land on which the railway was to be built was for 999 years. This was to change transport for ever.
The original survey for the railway showed very few bridges – all road crossings were simply to be by level crossing – the ground levels being changed to achieve this. However, by the time of construction, plans had changed and one of the contractors building bridges was Adam Mitchell from Kennethmont. Stones for this work were being supplied by a young man, John Fyfe, who was operating out of quarries at Tyrebagger, near Aberdeen. Mitchell mentioned to Fyfe that he thought he could get stone from Paradise Hill at Kemnay for the works on the line, thus making considerable savings on cartage. John Burnett, the local laird had quarried stone on the hill during the 1830s which was used in extensive alterations then being carried out at Kemnay House.
The present day Paradise Road - in the mid 19th century this was the main thoroughfare through what was to become the centre of the village - carried on up to what is now Wellbank and over the north-west shoulder of Paradise Hill passing through Dalmadilly, where its route can still be traced, on its way to Aquithie and places beyond.
It was above this roadway, on the side of Paradise Hill, that John Fyfe started his quarrying operations in 1858 to supply the needs of the contractors building bridges on the Alford Valley Railway, then under construction. Initially stone was extracted from a face quarry, [photo – section through a face quarry] that is, the quarry was driven in to the hill on the level, rather than going down, as was the practice later. Waste was pushed down the hill and over the years there were numerous complaints from the neighbouring tenant farmer for encroaching on his land, until eventually John Fyfe had to lease additional land.
Once the railway contract was completed, people flocked to work at the quarries and as there was a shortage of accommodation in the area, John Fyfe built four tenement blocks to house these incoming workers. Two were built on the top side of the road just beyond where Wellbank is now and these were called Paradise Cottages but more commonly known as 'The Raa'. [photo – wellbank] A block was built below the quarry between the railway line and the new road which had been laid out parallel to the line and now called Aquithie Road. This block was known as the High Siding. [photo – spion kop to Alehousewells] The fourth block was built on the other side of the road nearer to where the quarry office now stands with its gable facing the road. This was known as the Low Siding. [photo – quarry and low siding]
In 1881 these four properties housed 166 people in 29 households encompassing many trades: fireman (shotfirer) 1, stone cutter 1, engine driver 1, quarry worker 3, sett maker 12, stone carter 1, blacksmith 2, granite mason 3, granite labourer 3, quarry worker 8, engine stoker 1. Many others lived in the by now expanding village and in the crofts and holdings throughout the area. By 1881 John Fyfe was employing 480 men and 26 boys throughout his by then expanding empire.
In the quest for better stone it was soon found that better stone was available by going down, rather than into the hill. Stone was removed by means of a roadway down the side of the quarry. Fyfe's ever fertile brain soon derived a method to remove stone by means of an aerial ropeway crane, based on an idea he noticed in upper Deeside where the postman had an apparatus for ferrying the mail across the river Dee at Abergeldie. [photo – Abergeldie]. Tradition hands down that he worked it out whilst sitting in church and imagining the rope traversing from the gallery to the pulpit. Initially it was operated by having a mast on one side of the quarry with the cable stretching from there across the opening and fixed to the opposite quarry face. On this was a cradle, which travelled down the wire by gravity and could be pulled back up by means of a smaller cable. From this cradle was suspended another rope with a box at the end which could be lowered to the floor of the quarry and filled with the desired material and then lifted up to the surface. [photo – 1879 blondin tower]. This apparatus was called 'blondin' after the noted cableway walker, then at the height of his fame. The blondin revolutionised deep pit quarrying throughout the country and beyond with some of them designed to lift a load of twenty tons [Rubislaw quarry in Aberdeen]. Whereas Rubislaw maintained the practice of fastening the rope to one face of the quarry, at Kemnay the preferred method was to have a mast on either side of the quarry and the cableway strung between them [photo – image blondin 1905]. This necessitated an endless rope for moving the cradle back and forth along the cable and another for raising and lowering the box. The controls were mostly in buildings erected out from the face of the quarry which gave the operator a better vision down the quarry [photo – 1939 big hole and storage bins]. The engine houses pictured were erected soon after the whole power system was converted from steam to electricity following the arrival of electricity in the area around 1936.
BLASTING
One method of reducing stone to a manageable size is by the use of gunpowder – a method which had been widely used during the great work of taming the land for agriculture. On the wider scale of quarrying it was more of a hit and miss if larger amounts of stone had to be extracted. John Fyfe's fertile brain was ever at the forefront and below we have an article taken from the Aberdeen Journal of 17th July 1872.
QUARRY BLASTING BY ELECTRICITY. – John Fyfe, Esq., the enterprising proprietor of the extensive quarry works at Kemnay, being anxious to throw loose a large mass of granite at the bottom of one section of his works, some thirty feet below the level ground, yesterday called in the valuable aid of electricity to accomplish the task. It was necessary to fire four shots at once, in consequence of the enormous bulk of rock it was desired to move, and by none of the ordinary methods of blasting could this be done with any degree of certainty. Each hole was about 13 feet deep, and 6 or 8 feet apart, and took the men the greater part of the day to get into proper trim for the work, in consequence of the heavy rains that have lately prevailed there, as in other parts of the country. Mr D. Wright, electrician, George Street, Aberdeen, was the gentleman engaged to effect the blasting; and seeing that another person, well up in the science of electricity, had utterly failed to accomplish the same work, and that one of the men at the quarry had been killed in extracting the shots and another injured, it is no little credit to Mr Wright to state that, though the holes were certainly far from being perfectly dry, as they should have been in dry weather, he fired the four shots at once, and in the mere fractional part of a second, without the slightest failure. This application of electricity is a valuable one, and should be taken advantage of in similar cases. By this mode of simultaneous blasting, in the hands of a practical electrician, we have no doubt but that large blocks of granite could be obtained, which, from their size, would doubtless be of great value; and besides there is not the slightest danger to life, as the shots, though four, six, or eight simultaneously, could be fired to a certainty, and at any moment of time, when all engaged were at a safe distance.
The following year Mr Wright again returned to Kemnay: Aberdeen Journal 5th March 1873
QUARRY BLASTING EXTRORDINARY. – The other week, Mr D. Wright. Electrician, George Street, had a successful test trial of the electrical portion of contemplated granite blasting by electricity, on probably a larger scale than had before been done in Scotland; and last week Mr Wright as successfully accomplished the actual work under very adverse circumstances – in fact, in the midst of a snowstorm, which would have frightened our great scientific savans from even making the attempt. The operations took place at Mr Fyfe's quarries, at Kemnay, and it being important that the work should be done during the continuance of the frost, which prevented the water at the bottom of the quarry from flowing into the bores, and thus damaging the charges, Mr Wright, notwithstanding the storm, was resolved to go on, and so proceeded to Kemnay on Monday week. The operation consisted of eleven bores, twenty feet deep, and six feet apart; and all preliminaries having been satisfactorily gone through – holes duly charged, the electrical fuses introduced, and wire connections made – the shots were at once fired by Mr Wright, and a noise, not exceedingly loud, but more like distant thunder, intimated that the work was done. On examination, it was found that the great mass of granite, along the whole extent of the charges, had been duly started, and the work was successfully accomplished. The mass of granite being, however, left in an excellent condition to admit of an extra charge of powder and a second blasting, which was expected to save much labour to the workmen, it was resolved to resume operations on the following day. On Tuesday, accordingly, in the midst of a snow storm, which continued during the whole day, and very much interfered with preliminary operations, the work was resumed. The electrical apparatus having been put in trim, instantly a tremendous explosion was heard, which shook the ground like an earthquake for a considerable distance. Great masses of granite were thrown into the air, and vast blocks were hurled with a noise like thunder right over the ledge into the deep quarry below. On examination, it was seen that, in addition to what had been precipitated below, the whole body of the remaining granite along the course of the charges, and much more, was rent, and so thoroughly displaced, as to be in excellent condition for the workmen. Mr Fyfe estimated the weight of the entire body of granite thus displaced at nothing short of five thousand tons. In every respect the operations were most successful, and great credit is due to Mr Fyfe, the energetic proprietor of the works, for so boldly stepping out of the old routine, and calling in the aid of science to second and carry out his own skilful plan. No little praise is also due to Mr Wright for so successfully carrying out this gigantic operation.
Many of the developments which took place over the years had to be effected by the engineers at the quarries with some of the castings bought from founders in Aberdeen. The smiddy at the quarry contained 16 fires and it was from here that most of the tools used at the quarry emanated and were in turn regularly sharpened [photo – smiddy]. A study of the accompanying photograph shows the wide complexity of articles produced. Alongside the smiddy stood the joiners' workshop which performed an important part of the works of the quarries. Large buildings such as bridges required individual stones to be dressed in order that each may fit into its rightful place in the finished edifice. The loft in the workshop had a floor area some fifty feet square and on this was drawn out, full size, the building for which stones were to be provided. Wooden moulds, or patterns, were produced of the shape of the stones and these were given to the masons in order to produce stones of the required dimension and shape. Plans exist in the Fyfe archive from the early years of the 20th century of several bridges and buildings throughout the country with the name of the individual mason who made each stone for that specific building.
One of the early contracts for which stone was supplied from Kemnay was the new Municipal Buildings in Aberdeen. The frontage of this magnificent building extends 225 feet along Castle Street, 109 feet along Broad Street while the clock tower rises to 190 feet. [photo – Aberdeen Town House 2000] Initially, the architects for the contract, Messrs Peddie and Kinnear from Edinburgh created mayhem among the good folks of Aberdeen by suggesting that the buildings be erected in sandstone, in the mistaken belief that there would be an insufficient supply of granite to complete the contract. It was not until John Fyfe gave a personal guarantee to supply the necessary stone that the architects backed down. Stone from Kemnay was used in most of the dock works down the east coast of the country, stone was supplied for the Thames Embankment in London, for Kew, Putney, Tower (approaches – the towers are from Cornwall) and Chelsea (parapets), Blackfriars, Southwark, Vauxhall Bridges in London. At an earlier period, stone from Whitestones Quarry was used in the construction of Waterloo Bridge and New London Bridge.
Stone from Kemnay was used in the steps of the Queen Victoria Memorial, opposite Buckingham Palace. Other buildings in London in which Kemnay granite was used include: Savoy, Metropole, Waldorf Hotels, Northern Assurance Buildings; Royal Insurance, Lombard Street; Waring's Buildings, Oxford Street; Wallace and Co's Buildings, Crosby Square; Chartered Bank of India; Mercer's Hall; Electric Avenue in Brixton. Kemnay stone was also used in the Royal Liver Buildings in Liverpool, as also in White Star Offices, Royal Insurance, Parr's Bank and Royal Linen Buildings in that city. Much stone was used by the Manchester Ship Canal Company for the construction of canal docks and gates. The foundations of the Usher Hall in Edinburgh are built of Kemnay, while in Glasgow Kemnay was used in the War Memorial, the Broomielaw, Rutherglen and Crookston Bridges.
Nearer to home, in Aberdeen, most of the principal buildings in the city were built in Kemnay granite, virtually all the frontage of Union Terrace, The Public Library, St Mark's Church and H M Theatre (colloquially known as Education, Salvation and Damnation) – it is to be noted that whereas the frontage of HMT is in Kemnay, most of the rest of the building was from Tom's Forest – stone from Kemnay was used in the 2005 extension to the theatre. A number of churches throughout the city were built of Kemnay stone as also the Salvation Army Citadel. [photo - citadel 2000] The salmon pink of Corrennie is combined with Kemnay in the frontages of the Art Gallery and the Cowdray Hall. [photos – art gallery 2000, cowdray hall 2000] The Bon-Accord Centre used Kemnay stone during its construction, as also did the Parliament Buildings at Holyrood.
The cream of them all is undoubtedly the magnificent frontage to Marischal College designed by A Marshall Mackenzie and Son and built between 1895 and 1906. Reputably the second biggest granite building in the world behind the Escurial in Spain, the intricate tooling of the stone work was made possible by the then recent introduction of compressed air tooling. It has been recently cleaned by Aberdeen City Council who have leased the building from the University of Aberdeen to use as their municipal offices. [photo - marischal college 2012]
The very permanence of granite brought about its downfall due to the cost of working the stone. It was superseded by the use of concrete in its many different forms.
One of the biggest products at the quarry was waste. In their quest for good stone much was rejected and was built into great spoil tips which surrounded the site. To try and overcome this problem, a crushing plant was installed in the late 1890s which gave an outlet for smaller aggregates which were used as railway ballast and also road making. This crushing plant was constructed in the area of the present day engineers' prefab and from the plant a railway ran down the hill to the railway line below. The line of this railway is today marked by a metal doorway at the roadside. Fyfe also had to construct a bridge on Aquithie Road to cross the line of the railway from the crusher. This bridge was demolished during road realignment in the early 1970s. Construction of the crushing plant also cut across the line of the roadway over the shoulder of the hill and to compensate for this a roadway was constructed linking this road (the High Road) with Aquithie Road (the Low Road) This became known as the Wallie Road, due to the existence of a spring beside it, quite near to Aquithie Road where there was a hydraulic ram which pumped water up to a tank near to the Raa houses.
This plant served the needs of the quarry until well through the 1930s when new plant was installed to the north of the present day weighbridge with storage bins serviced by a siding from the railway. [photo - 1939 big hole and storage bins] Waggons could be pulled under the bins and filled directly from them. This plant served until around 1963 when it was further extended beyond the joiners' workshop and was accessed from an earlier level of the quarry workings. This gave the plant greater capacity and stood it in good stead for the next thirty odd years.
Quarrying, as such, ceased around 1959 and from the late 1960s onwards demand for aggregates increased considerably. From the early days of working, the level of where the workshops stood was carried right round the site towards the Raa, crossing the main access road by means of a bridge and on this was a network of rails used for moving materials by means of hand bogies. It was on this level that many of the settmakers worked. The need for this extensive level working area decreased and material form this tip was crushed and the level reduced some twenty feet to the level of the storage yards of today. By the end of the 1960s work commenced on crushing material from the tips round the top of the quarry rim, this being completed by the late 1970s and with the coming of the oil industry to the Aberdeen area there was a big upsurge in the need for all sizes of aggregates. Quarrying operations restarted round the side of what was number 2 quarry, commonly known as the howler and over the next fifteen years or so a large amount of stone was removed. In the 1970s Toms Forest quarry, a couple of miles nearer Kintore began developing as an aggregate producing unit which has been built up to one of the larger production units in the area with a large output of ready mixed concrete and roadstone. (Andy – what about some statistics?)
Kemnay, on the other hand, developed into a producer of concrete products started in 1941 with the installation of a brick producing unit which utilised the large stockpile of granite dust which had accrued since the start of the stone crushing era.
The inclusion of the concluding chapter from Rise and progress of the granite industry of Aberdeen might not be out of place. This booklet was written by William Diack, a quarryman of long standing, but he died before the work was published – in fact he passed on without being able to see the new innovation installed at Kemnay and the last chapter of the book was written by his long standing friend William S. Grant. It is headed New Enterprise at Kemnay Quarry.
I think it is fitting that this chapter should be added to these chronicles written by our old friend Mr William Diack, because, along with myself, he was invited by Mr Andrew Mutch, a director of Messrs John Fyfe Ltd., to visit Kemnay Quarries and see the new installation erected to produce granite concrete bricks, and we would have had a delightful chronicle on the subject in Diack's own style.
Quarrying has been largely mechanised in my lifetime; the only plant of the typical quarry of 70 years ago being a hand crane, with a short upright and a fixed jib (in the North-east it was called "an oxter crane") and in some cases a miniature railway carrying the waste to a "dump" or to the sea shore.
The labour then cost 3d. to 4d. per hour. Man power was plentiful, drilling was done by hand, and the heavy scabbling pick was in daily use for shaping the blocks; the work was very arduous and the older toil-worn men often graduated to the breaking of macadam for the roads, for which they were paid about 1/6 [7.5p] per cubic yard. Every modern quarry now has its stonebreaker, conveyor, screening plant, diesel engine or electric motors driving air compressors, electric cranes and cableways.
Every progressive change in the industry has brought with it new problems. Aberdeenshire quarries have mainly been concerned with the production of monumental or architectural quality of material, rubble for building houses, and also material for building setts, but this left a considerable residue of waste on the quarriers' hands for which there was not sufficient market. With the introduction of crushing plant a great step forward was made in the utilisation of this by-product, from the former commodities, yet it was soon found that the crushing plants created a large volume of small size spawls and dust for which there appeared to be no available market.
At Kemnay Quarry there was a vast stock of this by-product from the crushing enterprise, Messrs John Fyfe, Ltd. decided to install a modern plant to make use of this material by compressing it into granite concrete bricks.
Messrs Fyfe were fortunate in being able to purchase the plant in 1940 and (an important point, in these days) had buildings suitable for housing the plant, but with slight alterations.
Mr Andrew Mutch, a director of the company, showed me over the plant recently and a general description is as follows:
The aggregate is dumped into a bin, at the bottom of which is a control discharge door, which discharges the aggregate into the boot of an elevator. This elevator delivers the material on to a vibrating screen which removes oversize; the proper size passing through the screen into the hopper underneath. Underneath this hopper is a measuring machine which automatically measures the granite and cement, and these two materials pass together on a belt conveyor into a horizontal double-shafted mixer.
There they receive a very thorough mixing in the dry state, after which the mixture is delivered by another elevator into a hopper superimposed over a nine-feet diameter panmill. The material passes through the panmill in batches of about half a ton at a time, water being added while the material is being tempered. It then passes into an automatic feeder which discharges the mixture in a steady stream to the brick press – a most ingenious machine which automatically delivers the finished bricks on the top of the table at the rate of 1,800 per hour.
In the press the loose material drops by gravity into moulds and each brick is subjected to a pressure of 150 tons.
The result is that all the air is forced out and the brick is a dense solid product. The "green" bricks are transferred from the press by women on to specially constructed buggies and are kept under cover for 24 hours, after which the bricks are stacked outside in the open for at least one month before being offered for sale.
The machine certainly does its work well and one commendable feature is that the whole process is automatic; no handling is required until the finished article is removed from the table.
Keeping in mind that the clayfields are not very numerous in this area and in due course will become exhausted or uneconomical in working, I foresee a prospect of well-merited success for this new venture, and Mr Mutch assures me that he hopes to be able to place this material on the market at approximately the same price as ordinary clay-bricks.
The Kemnay granite concrete brick is of standard size and, being highly compressed, is non-porous. The finished brick is finding great favour principally on account of its fine finish and uniform size. Kemnay granite is well known for its nice tone of grey colour and the bricks, when cured, carry the same pleasing effect to the eye. Mr Mutch assures me that orders are coming to hand quite as fast as the material can be prepared for the market. It was indeed a pleasure to see how all the automatic arrangements worked, and how the finished article emerged through the slots in the table to be deftly picked up by the women and placed on trolleys to be conveyed to the drying shed.
Looking around the stacking ground there were very few broken fragments to be seen indicating that even in their unseasoned condition, the bricks are not at all fragile, and stand up well to the necessary handling in stacking.
I heartily recommend the new enterprise and wish Messrs. Fyfe every success in the further development of our industry in the North-East of Scotland.
THE MODERN DAY PICTURE
The introduction of KBrick proved to be such a success that two further machines were added and the operation moved to a custom built building in the early 60’s. Production peaked at around 41000 bricks per day in the mid 70’s, with every one being gently manually handled onto pallets. In late 1999 it was decided that production from the very labour intensive ‘bricker’ should be moved to the very heavily automated ‘Omag’ plant. This allowed production of over 48000 bricks per day using only 4 men as opposed to 12 in the old brick factory. The Bricker produced its final brick in early 2000 and the machines removed. During their removal it was discovered that one of the original Alexander Brick Presses dated from 1909, not bad for a machine originally designed for compacting coal dust!
Mr Andrew Mutch, always very commercially aware, spotted an opportunity to provide an alternative to monumental granite which was in decline in the late 1950’s by supplying a synthetic granite lookalike to be known as Fyfestone. This incredibly dense, hydraulically pressed concrete allowed close approximations for most of the naturally occurring granites and sandstones of Scotland to be produced. Fyfestone appeared on the market in 1958 and is still being produced today, a firm testament to its qualities and durability. The production process has changed dramatically over the years moving from a 6 man wet press team to a completely automated unit with only 2 nowadays. Although the Fielden & Platt press is still virtually identical to the original the computer controls and automated batching and handling systems would leave the original team wide eyed in astonishment! Once the Fyfestone parent has been produced it remains in the stockyard until a customer order requires its further processing. Originally the splitting operation utilised 3 men per splitter spread across three splitters with every piece being manually stacked onto pallets. In early 2003 a state of the art factory was created with robotic handling systems from Kawasaki taking over the mundane manual palletising. This step change in technology maintains Kemnay’s forward thinking and ready adoption of new technology, an attitude displayed by the original John Fyfe so many years ago.
Mr John Mutch, son of Andrew, introduced semi dry block production to Kemnay in 1976 with the installation of the company’s first Omag static block plant. This unit saw dense and lightweight concrete blocks added to the Kemnay product range. This very high volume machine was replaced in 1984 with a newer but similar Omag machine allowing paving blocks to be successfully added to the rapidly expanding portfolio of products. Aggregate Industries assimilation of Kemnay in the late 1990’s resulted in a ‘return to core products’ rationalisation where the hard landscaping products previously produced were abandoned and handed to more centrally located Southern factories. However, a new technologically advanced block plant was purchased in 2006 from Columbia with the handling systems being the best available from Omag and the batching plant from Rapid in Ireland. This allowed products to be produced with far closer tolerances than previously possible, a market necessity by then. This factory produces over 500T of dense concrete per shift with a high dust content solving the same problem originally highlighted over 70 years ago!