The brick-built cone is the only such structure to survive in Scotland, and is one of four in the United Kingdom: the other three are at Lemington on Tyneside, Catcliffe in South Yorkshire and Wordsley in the West Midlands.

Workers were trained by craftsmen from Bohemia (in the present-day Czech Republic), who also oversaw the construction of the first glass cone on the site.

[3] Although glassmaking is an ancient process, it was carried out on a small scale until the development of industrialised methods in Europe allowed it to be mass-produced.

The fusion of silica and sodium oxide in a furnace was usually achieved by the burning of wood; but coal was often used instead in Britain, which prompted the development of the glass cone.

Although invented earlier, they became commonplace in the early 19th century; but further innovations in the glassmaking industry made the float glass production method more efficient and allowed manufacture to be based in fewer but larger works.