Set In Stone: The Family Legacy Behind Every Olympic Curling Stone

Every four years, the world watches granite glide across Olympic ice. Few viewers realise that each of those stones began life on an uninhabited island in the Firth of Clyde and was shaped by hand in a small Ayrshire town. Kays of Mauchline has been making curling stones for more than 175 years, and its story is one of family enterprise, family conflict and, ultimately, renewal.

A Business Born of Kinship

Tradition dates the firm's origins to 1851, when William Kay and his sons Andrew and Thomas set up a workshop at Haugh, near Mauchline. Before Kays, curling had little regulation and stones of any shape or size were used. The family helped change that, and the key was a rock. Granite from Ailsa Craig proved highly resistant to splintering, and the Kays secured the right to harvest it, a permission granted by the Marquess of Ailsa.

When Tragedy Tests the Family

Every family business eventually faces a moment that tests it, and for the Kays it came early and brutally. By 1881, Andrew was employing thirty people. Then, in the summer of 1887, his wife Catherine gave birth to twins, and four days later Andrew died aged just 32. Within weeks, the twins had died too.

What followed will be painfully familiar to anyone who has watched a business stumble through an unplanned succession. Legal action ensued and the business went to auction in 1888. Thomas won the business name, but Catherine held on to the Haugh premises and built a successful rival under the name Andrew Kay and Company.

For years, two branches of one family competed in the same town, making the same product from the same rock. Grief, ownership and livelihood collided with no framework to hold them apart.

The Wyllie Era

Stewardship eventually passed by marriage to James Wyllie, and the company remained wholly owned by the Wyllie family for generations. In 1911 the business moved to Barskimming Road in Mauchline, where it remains today. The Wyllies ran Kays as a genuinely hands on enterprise; archive photographs from around the 1960s show Tom Wyllie, one of three brothers running the firm, operating the machinery himself, at a time when the workforce numbered around forty.

The business weathered history in unexpected ways too. When the liner SS Athenia was torpedoed on the first day of the Second World War, her cargo included 278 Kays stones bound for Canadian curling clubs.

Craft as Inheritance

What the Kays and Wyllies really passed down was a craft. Ailsa Craig Blue Hone granite forms the running edge, prized for its resistance to water, while Common Green granite makes up the body because it withstands impact without splintering. Because the island is now a bird reserve, quarrying is restricted, and each meticulously planned expedition gathers only granite that has already fallen naturally, enough to keep the Mauchline workshop supplied for years to come.

The reputation that craft earned is extraordinary. Kays stones have been used at Olympic level since 1998 and at every World Curling championship, and new stones were made for the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.

A New Chapter For Kays

By the early 2020s, Kays was in financial difficulty and under threat of moving out of the area. Jim English, an Ayrshire man with a background in business turnarounds, led the recovery and returned the firm to profit, and ownership passed from the Wyllies to English and chairman Paul Davidson.

The new owners recognised immediately that the real asset was knowledge held in the hands of a few craftsmen and set about bringing young people in to get knowledge transfer going. The result was striking: a young craftsman made half the Olympic stones, veteran John Brown made the rest, and World Curling could not tell them apart.

All this despite external shocks, including the loss of a Russian market that had once been a significant proportion of sales, with Kays now exporting to around 70 countries.

Perhaps the most telling development is that Kays is once again manufacturing with a family connection as Jim's son, Ricky English, has given up his career on the oil rigs to join the business, swapping the North Sea for the workshop floor in Mauchline. It is a decision that echoes his father's own journey, and it brings fresh energy to one of Scotland's oldest manufacturing stories.

As Ricky explains, “There is obviously still a nice family connection."

"With me now working alongside my Dad and Paul, and a proud family business legacy from years gone by and I am very proud to be a part of the business and to help take it forward.”

Ricky is now helping the business continue on the next chapter of its journey, with exciting plans for the future. Among them is the potential development of a heritage centre, an ambition that would allow visitors to experience the remarkable history of Kays and the craft behind every stone. For a company whose story spans Victorian rivalries, wartime losses and Olympic glory, it would be a fitting way to share a legacy that belongs to Ayrshire and to curling worldwide.

Lessons for Every Family Business

What can today's family firms take from nearly two centuries in Mauchline?

First, plan for the unthinkable. Andrew Kay's death split a family and a business because nothing had been agreed in advance. Is your shareholder agreement ready for a sudden loss?

Second, protect the knowledge, not just the assets. Exclusive access to Ailsa Craig granite is invaluable, but without skilled hands it is simply rock. Who in your business holds knowledge that has never been written down or shared?

Third, stewardship matters more than surname. The Kays legacy survives because new custodians chose to keep the craft in Mauchline, and now a new ownership and leadership team is building on it. If your next generation cannot or will not continue, have you considered who might carry your legacy forward?

Finally, heritage is an asset to be shared. A heritage centre turns history into connection. How well does your business tell its own story?

Kays of Mauchline shows that a family business legacy is measured not only by how long one family holds the shares, but by whether the values, skills and sense of place endure.

From a water powered mill on the banks of the River Ayr to Olympic ice, and now into new ownership, the journey of Kays continues and the stones still carry the fingerprints of all who came before.

The question for every family business is simple: what will you leave behind, and who will be ready to carry it?