Scotch Hone Clarification.
I have a question about the provenance of the stones that we call Water of Ayr. The obvious place to start would be Tucker's Ayrshire Honestones, but I have that and it doesn't answer my question. I understand that a lot of the confusion concerning the WOA stone comes from the fact that both this hone and the TOS were sold indiscriminately as the same stone in the past, and it is only more recently that we make a clear distinction between the speckled Tams and the darker WOA. However, I'm still not sure where the WOA stone comes from. Does it come from the same quarry as the TOS? Or is the stone identified as the WOA quarried at the Meikledale mine mentioned by Tucker? In his book he mentions that TOS stones are glued together with Meikladale hones to make a combo stone. The Meikladale Hone is described as being finer alnd less pure than the TOS. Tucker also names the Meikladale Hone as the Blue Water of Ayr stone in the book. Whilst I have seen blue stones that were identified as WOA by their owners, the stones with labels that identify them as WOA have always been a very dark charcoal/ black coloured stone. So, does the stone we call the WOA come from Meikladale? Or, is the darker stome more recently identified as WOA quarried from the same spot as the TOS, and therefore distinct from the Meikladale stone?
Regards,
Alex