About Furnace
Furnace is a village in Argyll, in Scotland. It sits on the shores of Loch Fyne, the longest sea loch in the country, reaching twenty three miles inland. It is unusual for a west coast village - most of which have traditionally been concerned only with agriculture and fishing - because it also has an industrial heritage. This included hosting one of Argyll’s four Gunpowder Works - which blew itself out of business on 29th September 1883; and the old Iron Furnace whose importance subverted the village’s earlier identity as Inverleacainn, producing its current name of ‘Furnace’ as local shorthand. It still hosts the Furnace Quarry, one of its traditional industries and the only one surviving. A factual summary of the village’s history can be found in its entry in Wikipedia - and you can get there quickly by clicking on ‘About Furnace’ below the picture in the left hand side of this page. And if you look under ‘Maps’ at the bottom of the left hand side of this page - and scroll to the Furnace area, you can check out the exact location of local features by zooming in and clicking on the location ‘balloons’.
Furnace today remains a real village, marrying long standing local families with newcomers who have chosen to live here permanently. There are few second homes and the majority of those who own them have made themselves part of the life of the village.
The village has the full community kit of school, pub, health centre, shop and post office, church, village hall, football field and children’s playpark. There are a wide variety of clubs and activities taking place in the village. However, it does not - perhaps cannot - support the lives of young teenagers as they would like and this is something the village is always looking to improve.
