Strontian

"Strontian, a village in Aradamurchan parish, Argyllshire, in the mouth of a glen on the N side and towards the head of salt-water Loch Sunart, 21 miles ENE of Tobermory, and 24 SW of Fort William. At one time a poor-looking clachan, it underwent in 1828 a total revolution under the direction of Sir James Riddell and his lady, and now consists of some renovated turf huts and neat slated cottages of granite. It has a post office, with money order, savings bank, and telegraph departments, under Ardgour, an inn, a quoad sacra parochial church, a Free church, a public school, and fairs on the Thursday before the last Wednesday of May, and the Thursday before the last Wednesday of October. The quoad sacra parochial church was built in 1827 at the expense of Government, and contains nearly 500 sittings. Strontian House, in the vicinity of the village, is the seat of Sir Rodney Steuart Riddell, fourth Bart. since 1778 (b. 1838; suc. 1883). Lead mines in the glen to the N of the village were worked from the beginning of the 18th century till 1855. They contain a great variety of very rare calcareous spars, with splendid specimens of the staurolite; and are famous for having yielded, in1790, a metal of the alkaline earths, known ever since to naturalists as strontium, and then found in them in the form of strontites or carbonate of strontium. The quoad sacra parish is in the presbytery of Mull and the synod of Argyll. Pop. (1871) 803, (1881) (591, (1891) 674, of whom 614 were in Ardnamurchan and 60 in Morvern."

From Groome's Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland, 1892-96