Farming

There is a rich history of farming over 400 years of almost self-efficiency, starting with the black cattle which produced milk, butter and beef.

Coal mining

Coal has been mined in Kintyre since the latter part of the 15th century.

Whisky

Distilling was introduced to Scotland by the Irish Celts as they travelled from Ulster to Kintyre around 500 AD and pot stills for the production of small quantities of ‘poteen’ or raw spirit, were widely distributed in the farmlands of East and West Kintyre throughout most of the 16th Century.

Ship building

Fishing

Fish captured using spears, traps, lines and nets, and shellfish were a vital element in the diet of early Kintyre hunter-gatherer communities.

Commercial fishing, involving full-time fishermen, was late developing, and Campbeltown’s elevation to national importance as a fishing centre began about 1760 when it became an annual assembly port for a fleet of drift-netting herring ‘busses’ fitted out to capitalize on government subsidies; but by the end of that century the fishery was in decline and investors began withdrawing their capital.

These large busses, based on the design of Dutch fishing vessels, were phased out and the fishery reverted to small open boats. Around 1840, the scale of the boats increased again with the appearance of part-decked drift-netting smacks. In the 1870s, the scale increased still further when luggers were bought into Campbeltown to engage in mackerel drift-netting in the southern Irish Sea, based at Kinsale.

By then, however, drift-netting had entered a terminal decline, replaced by ring-netting, which was Kintyre’s unique contribution to world fishing technology. The ring-net evolved in the first half of the 19th century from small beach seine-nets operated from Tarbert but was soon being employed offshore. During this period, the mid- to late 19th century, many ring-net fishermen based themselves in summer at their favourite fishing locations, living ashore in tents and huts.

The small open skiffs increased in size until the sail version, incorporating living accommodation in the form of a small forecastle or ‘den’, reached its height of development with the Loch Fyne Skiff, such as the Yerda which is to be seen in the Heritage Centre the prototypes of which, the ‘Alpha’ and the ‘Beta’, were launched for a Dalintober fisherman, Iver McGeachy, in 1882.

With the turn of the century and the coming of motor power, the model evolved again. In 1922, the ‘Falcon’ and ‘Frigate Bird’ were launched for pioneering Campbeltown skipper, Robert Robertson. These vessels ushered in an era of technological advance which only ended when ring-netting ended in the 1970s. These larger motorised ring-netters were fast, highly manoeuvrable and ultimately well-equipped with winches and electronic fish-detection and navigational aids.

The ring-net fishermen ranged widely in pursuit of herring, to the Isle of Man, Firth of Forth, Yorkshire coast and especially to the Minches, where an annual winter fishery – conducted in darkness along dangerous shores and often in hostile weather – increasingly assumed major economic importance.
By the 1960s, diversification was well underway and most fishermen had converted to seine-netting for white fish, dredging for scallops or ‘clams’, and trawling for ‘prawns’ (scampi). In recent years, with the negation of herring-fishing and dearth of white fish on local grounds, the main fishing effort has been directed at shellfish – prawns, scallops, and ‘buckies’ (whelks) – and the Kintyre fishing fleet has been reduced from hundreds in the 19th century to less than a dozen in the 21st.

Perhaps the greatest feature in the decline of fishing has been the related decline of fishing communities. Until the beginning of the 20th century, there were small communities all around the coasts of Kintyre: at Muasdale, Southend, Sanda, Saddell, Torrisdale, Grogport and Skipness, as well as at the main ports of Campbeltown, Carradale and Tarbert. Additionally, there were many seasonal fishing stations: huts and cottages which housed individual fishermen, who launched their boats from the shore to fish for lobsters and salmon. The ruins of these fishing stations can still be seen, usually, with a nearby ‘port’, a passageway cleared of rocks, for the launching and beaching of their open boats.
The salting – or curing – of fish was the main means of preserving catches until refrigeration arrived in the 20th century. At Carradale and Torrisdale in the late 18th century stood two ‘red herring houses’, where herring were steeped and then smoked in a lengthy process. Kippers were introduced in the nineteenth century, but these required less salting and less smoking and deteriorated much more rapidly than the red herring.

Large quantities of herring were cured in barrels on Campbeltown Old Quay and remarkable pictures of this can be seen in the Heritage Centre. The busy scenes of gutting and packing herring into barrels, using the labour of women from the Scottish East Coast and Ireland, have been captured in these photographs. But when ring-netting arrived, combined with railway and steamship communication, the market in fresh herring became increasingly important, and the gutting, smoking and salting was no longer carried out.

Campbeltown at War

Kintyre and its strategic port have always played a significant role in the defence of the realm. All along the coast, there are fortifications, dating from the early Christian era, the best example of which is probably the excavated Kildonan Dun, a fortified farmstead from the first century AD. at Ballochgair. The place names such as Carradale, Saddell and Skipness indicate Viking strongholds and the fighting men of Kintyre have played a major role in almost all of Scotland and the UK’s battles as well as the civil uprisings such as the ’15 and the ’45.

The Heritage Trust has a considerable collection of artefacts, medals, documentation and exhibits from both the First and Second world wars when Campbeltown provided so many fighting men and also had both naval and latterly air warfare significance.

In the first World War, the fighting men of the 8th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders had a very distinctive role in the very worst of the fighting across France and Belgium with honours and great losses at Mons, Loos, Ypres and Passchendaele in particular. As a result of the heavy losses, Campbeltown was presented with a captured German Minenwerfer or Mortar gun which is now located outside the Heritage Centre.

During the Second World War Campbeltown was the base for HMS Nimrod, the training school for the Navy’s Asdic anti-submarine detection system. This meant that schools, hotels and church halls were all taken over by the Navy and there was a steel boom floating across the entrance to the harbour as well as a minefield beyond Davaar, to prevent penetration by enemy submarines.

Campbeltown was also the headquarters of HMS Minona, the Deep Sea Rescue Tug Service responsible for towing damaged ships from the Atlantic convoys into harbours from Scapa Flow to Portsmouth, with their vital loads. The Heritage Centre was subsequently made the centre for the Rescue Tug Association collection of documentation, ships logs and models and is the National Centre for such material.


Photography was forbidden in the area during the wars, The famous official war artist Stephen Bone was however commissioned to produce paintings of the maritime war effort in Campbeltown and the Heritage Centre holds a set of reproductions of these famous paintings of the boom, submarine activity and the rescue tugs, Courtesy of the Imperial War Museum.


Machrihanish airfield opened for the first time in 1918, operating as a sub-station of the RNAS airship station based at Luce Bay. In the Second World War Machrihanish was the location for the Royal Naval Air station, HMS Landrail, which was a base for anti-submarine reconnaissance on the western approaches. It was also used for Swordfish and Barracuda torpedo bomber training and deck landing training.

Torpedo bombing training officer at RNAS Machrihanish for much of the war was Lieut Commander Kenneth Pattison DSO DFC who had successfully crippled the German Battleship, Bismarck. During that time his son, Rodney Pattison was borne in Campbeltown. Rodney is better known as a double Olympic Gold medallist with his yacht Superdocious. He is Campbeltown’s most famous sportsman.

The Harbour

South Kintyre has many natural advantages ranging from good agricultural land, coal, water and peat supplies to good education facilities and hard-working population, but the greatest attribute of the area and the background justification for all of its success indeed for the very existence of Campbeltown is the magnificent sheltered harbour.

Campbeltown Loch is the most westerly safe harbour on the British mainland and occupies a strategic position in the epicentre of Britain’s western seaboard. Before the development of road and rail transport, it was a central to some of the most important sea routes in the United Kingdom, with daily services to Glasgow and regular services also to Ireland and to Liverpool. Until the development of the Crinan Canal, it was also an essential shelter port for all vessels trading with the west of Scotland.
The existence of the harbour was essential to the development of the whisky, coal, herring timber and latter-day wind turbine industries. It was also a key element in the naval defences in both World Wars.

The Heritage Centre highlights this importance with exhibits on the Campbeltown and Glasgow Shipping line which provided daily services to Glasgow, the role of the harbour in wartime both as the base for the North Atlantic Rescue Tugs and also as the training centre, in both wars for naval shipping and anti-submarine activities. A large collection of excellent ship models with the interpretation of their roles is under development, and there is also an exhibit of the different types of fishing vessels which operated from the harbour and their methods.