About us

The Isle of Skye Cuillin Marbles website is the place to buy your very own piece of Scotland. Genuine hand made Scottish gifts and keepsakes crafted on the island from the world-renowned Isle of Skye marble.

Legend has it that for hundreds of years whenever our ancestors had to leave home on their long and arduous journeys south with sheep or cattle, or to follow the clan chief into battle, they would take with them a small talisman as a good luck token. This was usually a Ciuin stone. It not only reminded them of home and loved ones but they were also comforted in the knowledge that should they never return they would forever have a piece of their homeland with them.

When Dorothy Martin and her husband Gus formed Skye Cuillin Marbles in 2003 their purpose was to provide the same level of comfort and luck to the modern day traveller. They use the same raw materials, 450 million year old metamorphosised limestone known as Skye Marble, and while the mystical properties of the stone has not changed over the centuries, they are now able to bring out its true beauty by a lengthy process of tumbling and polishing. The result is a smooth tactile stone mirroring the colours of the land it comes from and that they hope their clansmen would have been proud to carry.

Over ninety years ago Skye Marble was an attractive prospect for industrial developers and they opened a quarry near Kilbride and brought in state of the art machinery to work the stone. They even built a railway to take their valuable product out via the pier at Broadford. Sadly in 1912 only four years after the railway was built the Skye Marble Company went into liquidation. The Quarries were re-opened in 1935 and the stone taken out by road, until finally stopping at this site in1939. In 1960 the quarry at nearby Torrin was opened and Isle of Skye Marble is once again being extracted here.

Dorothy and Gus make regular trips to the quarry where they hand pick every piece of stone (back breaking work).

Gus picking marble

Gus then has the unenviable task of breaking up the larger pieces to the size we need. It then goes through four lengthy stages of tumbling with different sized grits, all of which produce huge quantities of slurry that has to be washed off at each stage and disposed of in a responsible manner. Each stone has to be checked at every stage for cracks or chips and if rejected has to go through the whole process again. Invariably it is at the final polish stage that they notice most small flaws in the stone. When they are satisfied that the stone is perfect, Dorothy sorts them into the different sizes and decide which will be fitted with bell caps and which ones drilled. Diamond tipped drill bits are used for drilling small holes in the stone for the eye pegs. She broke four drill bits before eventually managing to master the technique.

Each new lot of stones going through the process continues to delight and amaze them because it is hard to believe that such a variety of design and colours all come from the same small area at the foot of the Black Cuillin. A unique and beautiful stone from a unique and beautiful island, they hope you will visit them some day and see for yourself, meanwhile enjoy the website.

Skye marble started life over 500 million years ago with the laying down of Durness limestone, over the next 450 million years the heat and pressure generated by the volcanic processes that led to the formation of the Black Cuillin changed some of this limestone into marble. This magma of various minerals and crystals combined with the limestone to create the beauty and magic that is Skye marble.

The Isle of Skye lies off the northwest coast of Scotland and, it is said, no part of the island is more than five miles from the sea. It is sixty miles long and from seven to twenty five broad, as no less than 15 major sea lochs cut into the land. It is the most mountainous island in Scotland with the Black Cuillin having the most dramatic form.

Cuillin Hills, Isle of Skye