The family-owned business employs just 16 people, their numbers dwarfed by some of the television crews who traipse to this quiet corner of rural Scotland from around the world in search of curling's roots.

It also has an exclusive licence to extract granite from Ailsa Craig, an uninhabited island 16km off the western coast of Scotland and visible on a clear day from Royal Troon and Trump Turnberry golf clubs.

Once known as 'Paddy's Milestone', a prominent marker on the sea journey between Belfast and Glasgow in the Firth of Clyde, the island has a Blue Hone granite found nowhere else in the world.

Reuters

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