The Dalry Raws

A History of Miners' Accommodation 1848-1955

Marie Shevlin

978 1 911043 18 8

£15.00

Paperback, 160 pages

The Raws (miners’ rows) at Peesweep and Carsehead were home to thousands of residents in Dalry, Ayrshire, during one hundred years.  They served as accommodation for miners and their families when Dalry was a thriving industrial centre, yet nothing is left of the houses or mines now.  They have not been forgotten, however.  Miners who worked in the last operating pit in Dalry and people who lived in the raws as children have contributed their memories in oral histories recorded here.  The pits were dangerous places to work and the raws were roughly and hurriedly built.   Facilities were basic, life could be a struggle, yet community spirit thrived beside overcrowding and hardship.  This book is a record of how mining developed in Dalry then fell away and how miners and their families lived.  It will be of interest to Dalry residents, those with an interest in Scottish mining and those with mining ancestors.