Lugar is a small village in

East Ayrshire East Ayrshire ( sco, Aest Ayrshire; gd, Siorrachd Àir an Ear) is one of thirty-two council areas of Scotland. It shares borders with Dumfries and Galloway, East Renfrewshire, North Ayrshire, South Ayrshire and South Lanarkshire. The headquart ...

, southwest

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

. Lugar is in

Auchinleck Auchinleck ( ; sco, Affleck ;
gd, Achadh nan Leac

Parish,

Kyle Kyle or Kyles may refer to: Places Canada * Kyle, Saskatchewan, Canada Ireland * Kyle, County Laois * Kyle, County Wexford Scotland * Kyle, Ayrshire, area of Scotland which stretched across parts of modern-day East Ayrshire and South Ayrshir ...

District,

Ayrshire Ayrshire ( gd, Siorrachd Inbhir Àir, ) is a historic county and registration county in south-west Scotland, located on the shores of the Firth of Clyde. Its principal towns include Ayr, Kilmarnock and Irvine and it borders the counties of Re ...

. It is ENE of

Cumnock Cumnock (Scottish Gaelic: ''Cumnag'') is a town and former civil parish located in East Ayrshire, Scotland. The town sits at the confluence of the Glaisnock Water and the Lugar Water. There are three neighbouring housing projects which lie just o ...

, and about from

Cronberry Cronberry is a small hamlet situated north-east of Cumnock and one mile north-east of Lugar, in East Ayrshire, Scotland. History Cronberry has a Women's Rural Institute which meets in the old school. Diane and Holly Fallon were murdered at Cr ...

and from Gaswater. Lugar was a station on the

Mauchline Mauchline (; gd, Maghlinn) is a town and civil parish in East Ayrshire, Scotland. In the 2001 census Mauchline had a recorded population of 4,105. It is home to the National Burns Memorial. Location The town lies by the Glasgow and South Wes ...

and

Muirkirk Muirkirk ( gd, Eaglais an t-Slèibh) is a small village in East Ayrshire, southwest Scotland. It is located on the north bank of the River Ayr, between Cumnock and Glenbuck on the A70. Conservation The Muirkirk & North Lowther Uplands Special ...

branch of the Glasgow and South Western Railway. Lugar is about SE of

Kilmarnock Kilmarnock (, sco, Kilmaurnock; gd, Cill Mheàrnaig (IPA: ʰʲɪʎˈveaːɾnəkʲ, "Marnock's church") is a large town and former burgh in East Ayrshire, Scotland and is the administrative centre of East Ayrshire, East Ayrshire Council. ...

. Lugar was once dominated by a large

ironworks An ironworks or iron works is an industrial plant where iron is smelted and where heavy iron and steel products are made. The term is both singular and plural, i.e. the singular of ''ironworks'' is ''ironworks''. Ironworks succeeded bloomeri ...

with several blast furnaces. Like the

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic via ...

industry in nearby areas, though, the iron industry has been decimated by economic decline. The Lugar ironworks closed long ago. Lugar was built to accommodate the workers at the ironworks around 1845. They were housed in "''miners raws" (sic). On the 1860

Ordnance Survey Map , nativename_a = , nativename_r = , logo = Ordnance Survey 2015 Logo.svg , logo_width = 240px , logo_caption = , seal = , seal_width = , seal_caption = , picture = , picture_width = , picture_caption = , formed = , preceding1 = , di ...

the rows included ''Peesweip Row, Craigstonholm Row, Store Row, Back Row'' and ''Hollowholm Row''.(This map also shows a Curling Pond). Other maps included ''Laigh Row, Double Row'' and ''High Row''. The population grew to 753 in 1861, and 1374 in 1871. By 1881 it had 1353 people and 1891 people, according to the

Ordnance Survey , nativename_a = , nativename_r = , logo = Ordnance Survey 2015 Logo.svg , logo_width = 240px , logo_caption = , seal = , seal_width = , seal_caption = , picture = , picture_width = , picture_caption = , formed = , preceding1 = , di ...

. The Lugar Institute was created in 1892 by a Mr. Weir of Kildonan. The Institute consisted of a lecture hall with a capacity of 400, a reading room, recreation room (for chess etc.), billiard room and bowling alley. It was partially demolished, and some of the remaining parts have been recently restored. A local church, established in 1867, is another prominent feature of Lugar. The Lugar Boswell Thistle Football Club is a Scottish

football (soccer) Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

club based there. The club is nicknamed ''The Jaggy Bunnets''. They were formed in 1878 as a senior team, turning to the juniors after a short spell. The 65th Ayrshire

scout Scout may refer to: Youth movement *Scout (Scouting), a child, usually 10–18 years of age, participating in the worldwide Scouting movement **Scouts (The Scout Association), section for 10-14 year olds in the United Kingdom **Scouts BSA, sectio ...

troop in the Kylesmuir District is based in Lugar. Near Lugar, at Bello Mill Cottage on the estate of

James Boswell James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck (; 29 October 1740 (New Style, N.S.) – 19 May 1795), was a Scottish biographer, diarist, and lawyer, born in Edinburgh. He is best known for his biography of his friend and older contemporary the Englis ...

in Auchinleck,

William Murdoch William Murdoch (sometimes spelled Murdock) (21 August 1754 – 15 November 1839) was a Scottish engineer and inventor. Murdoch was employed by the firm of Boulton & Watt and worked for them in Cornwall, as a steam engine erector for ten yea ...

was born in 1754. Murdoch did some important experiments on steam engines and was the inventor of

gas lighting Gas lighting is the production of artificial light from combustion of a gaseous fuel, such as hydrogen, methane, carbon monoxide, propane, butane, acetylene, ethylene, coal gas (town gas) or natural gas. The light is produced either directl ...

Murdoch's Cave Murdoch's Cave, is a relatively small artificial cave created by William Murdoch (1754-1839) and his siblings in the soft red sandstone Lugar river bank cliff just upstream of the old Bellow Mill close to the confluence of the Bellow or Bello ...

where he carried out a lot of his experiments on

coal gas Coal gas is a flammable gaseous fuel made from coal and supplied to the user via a piped distribution system. It is produced when coal is heated strongly in the absence of air. Town gas is a more general term referring to manufactured gaseous ...

can still be seen on the riverbank of the

Lugar Water The Lugar Water, or River Lugar, is created by the confluence of the Bellow Water and the Glenmuir Water, just north of Lugar, both of which flow from the hills of the Southern Uplands in East Ayrshire, Scotland. Course Source to Cumnock Th ...

Geology: the Lugar Sill

Close to the village, and cropping out for a length of about 5 kilometres in a NE-SW direction, is the Lugar Sill, an internationally studied geological feature and a

Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle of ...

. It has been intruded in several phases (on or close to the Carboniferous-Permian boundary) in molten form into the local sandstone and then crystallised. The thickness of the igneous rock is estimated at 42-49 m. It extends in a general north-easterly direction from Lugar, 2.5 Km beyond the village of Cronberry. Its composition overall is outer Teschenite units and a thick core of layered

Theralite Theralite (from Greek "to pursue") is, in petrology, the name given to calcic feldspathoid, foidal gabbro, a plutonic hylocrystalline rock consisting of augite, olivine, calcic plagioclase (labradorite), and nepheline, along with accessories includ ...

and

Picrite Picrite basalt or picrobasalt is a variety of high-magnesium olivine basalt that is very rich in the mineral olivine. It is dark with yellow-green olivine phenocrysts (20-50%) and black to dark brown pyroxene, mostly augite. The olivine-rich p ...

including Lugarite, (a coarse-grained rock consisting of euhedral crystals of titanaugite and

Kaersutite Kaersutite is a dark brown to black double chain calcic titanium bearing amphibole mineral with formula: NaCa2(Mg3Ti4+Al)(Si6Al2)O22(OH)2. Ferro-kaersutite is the divalent iron rich endmember of the kaersutite group, with the iron replacing ma ...

up to 7cm long with corroded feldspars and ilmenite set in a cloudy greyish base of analcime, nepheline and alteration products}. The sill represents a nearby magma source differentiating ''in situ'' to give sequentially injected layers of slightly different petrochemical composition.

Ironworks

*1845 - Lugar Ironworks opened *1848 - Muirkirk Branch of the Glasgow and South Western Railway,

Auchinleck Auchinleck ( ; sco, Affleck ;
gd, Achadh nan Leac

opened. The line served the Lugar Ironworks, the Muirkirk Ironworks and various coalmines *1856 - Lugar Ironworks bought by the Eglinton Ironworks Ltd *1928 - Lugar Ironworks closed. Site later used by the

National Coal Board The National Coal Board (NCB) was the statutory corporation created to run the nationalised coal mining industry in the United Kingdom. Set up under the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946, it took over the United Kingdom's collieries on "v ...

as regional headquarters and workshops.

External links

*
Railscot page on Lugar IronworksYouTube video of the Lamargle Or Lugar Rocking Stone
Villages in East Ayrshire Ironworks and steelworks in Scotland Populated places established in 1845 {{EastAyrshire-geo-stub