Rollo lathes were made by Rollo Industries at the Barrmor Tool Works, Garadhmor Works, Easdale, By Oban, Scotland with the company offices at St. Andrew's Works, Bonnybridge. The founder of Rollo Industries was John M. Rollo (1901 - 1985) who had a hand in hiding the "Stone of Destiny" for thirteen weeks after it was stolen from Westminster Abbey in 1951.
The company was small, but produced (with the aid of young engineers considered by those in the know to be amongst the best in the area) a range of simple, easily maintained and well-made lathes with a high degree of standardisation between models and parts interchangeable between examples made many years apart. The works were also able to undertake a variety of ordinary and sub-contract work, and could also tackle more ambitious project exemplified by an Irish customer who wanted a particular model of then very popular English capstan lathe, but one that was not, unfortunately, available in the length of bed he required. The maker having refused to consider a one-off model he commissioned Rollo to buy a standard version and have a lengthened bed cast at the Broomside Iron Foundry in High Bonnybridge and then machined - and this would have been no small task - as necessary.
On one occasion a letter from South Africa arrived at the desk of the then manager, John Walker, enquiring about spares to rebuild a lathe that had originally been fitted, some thirty years earlier, as part of the machine-room in a Clyde-built ship.  Not only could the items be provided, he asserted, but they were still being used on lathes then being constructed on the shop floor.
During the Clydebank blitz in World War Two a German plane dropped a large land-mine close to the tiny works, the pilot no doubt attracted by the flames issuing from several kilns being fired in the three surrounding brick yards. With unembarrassed pride the company always maintained that, so important was their contribution to the war effort., that this bomb had been aimed at them.
Besides machine tools Rollo also produced, in the 1950s until the 1960s (and possibly later), what must have been one of the world's first miniature tractors the "Croftmaster" a 4-wheel device designed, appropriately enough, by an unknown Scottish crofter and available in both standard and "Twin" forms. The very first version of the Croftmaster is reported as being pedal powered - which could have been only marginally less tiring than digging with a spade or dragging things about by hand - followed by models with, amongst others, JAP water-cooled 4-stroke, BSA and Villiers engines. Not all the tractors were made at the Barrmor Works, a second factory in Firemore, Inverasdale being opened to cope with demand and. according to rumour, production of complete or part units being undertaken elsewhere as well. If you have a Rollo mini-digger, or any information about them, the writer would be interested in hearing from you.
Unlike many concerns making larger machine tools Barrmor also dabbled in lathes for amateurs and, besides a wood lathe, also produced three versions of  their unusual Elf model, a machine that defied conventional design criteria in several interesting ways..