Thread: Tam O' Shanter - 'Scotch Hone' close ups

Originally Posted by Makar

That's certainly the trademark label. Interesting. Good to see the stone too? Talking to Coully today he thought that the second image I took, which is labelled as TAM is in fact a Water of Ayr.

Funny, I was thinking the same thing when I looked at those pics – I think one of yours is the Water of Ayr. I heard somewhere (maybe from Coully?) that the hard-and-fast distinction between the WOA and the TOS is relatively recent. That is, that they used to just be called "Ayrshire stones" – and colloquially "Tam O'Shanters" because of the local Burns connection – and that there was simply some variety in the figure and fineness. A bit like the significant color variation in vintage Thuringians. And then at some point they sort of codified that the more mottled stones were Tam O'Shanters and the dark slate ones were "Water of Ayr" stones.

I may have hallucinated this – – so it would be interesting if Coully or someone with the book on these stones could set me straight.