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MHG13138 - Mill and lade - Oldshoremore

Summary

The well-built structure is of snecked random rubble construction, rectangular in plan and divided into three compartments.

Type and Period (2)

Protected Status

Full Description

(Location cited as NC 208 590). Mill, Oldshoremore, early 19th century. The roofless ruin of a rectangular 1-storey rubble building, with the iron axle and hub of an 8-spoke wheel, with wooden spooks 28ins (0.71m) wide by about 12ft (3.7m) diameter, which drove one pair of stones. The iron pit-wheel survives.
J R Hume 1977.

The remains of this disused mill comprise the shell of the building, a remnant of the wheel (not in situ), and traces of the silted-up lade.
Visited by OS (JM), 30 May 1980. NC25NW 7.01 2073 5894

A second archaeological survey of Sandwood Estate in the parish of Eddrachillis was undertaken by ACFA in 2002.

This ruined mill is a locally well known feature. Although the mill is outside the Sandwood Estate, ACFA were pleased to include it in the survey. Access was arranged through the good offices of Cathel Morrison.

The remains of the mill are located on the north side of the Amhainn Aisair Mhor some 200m west of the public road from Kinlochbervie to Blairmore. The land surrounding is rolling pastureland and there is evidence of a track approaching the mill along the higher ground to the north before looping down the gradient to arrive at the southwest end of the building. The building itself is located on a narrow shelf of flat land adjacent to the river with the ground rising steeply behind to the northwest.

The well-built structure is of snecked random rubble construction, rectangular in plan and divided into three compartments. The building is 16.80m long from northeast to southwest and 5.70m wide. There are the fragmentary remains of a waterwheel just outside the northeast end, while the compartment at the southwest was clearly a drying kiln. At ground level the three compartments are independent from each other, but there was through-access at attic level.

Examination of the exterior stonework revealed that the northeast gable had been raised by 0.70m and the long walls by 0.85m and that the centre and southwest compartments had been added. The original mill building, which it is considered could well date from the latter part of the 18th century, had been much smaller at only 8.60m in length. In enlarging the building an upper attic floor had been added allowing the free movement at one level between the drying floor over the kiln and the hopper serving the grinding stones. The original small rural mill probably had a slate clad roof (John Shaw, 'Water Power in Scotland 1550 to 1870') at a
45-degree pitch. When the building was later extended the larger building's roof was most probably clad with corrugated iron sheeting. Evidence for this exists in the sand cement skews surviving at both gables.

Mill Compartment. The mill is the compartment at the northeast end of the building and measures 7.0m long by 4.35m wide internally. A doorway and window are located in the southeast wall with a further window, now blocked up, in the opposite northwest wall. A fireplace is set into the southeast wall between the doorway and the machinery area. A low wall lies across the space parallel to the northeast end wall and 1.10m from it. The ground level within this narrow space is lower than in the remainder of the compartment and it is within this "pit" that the inner or pit wheel rotated. Nothing now remains of the pit wheel except the hub on a I00mm square iron axletree 3.20m long. The inner wheel, probably an eight-spoke iron wheel, had been reported as intact only twenty-five years ago. The fallen running stone lies among the debris with the iron spindle with trundle still in place.

Scarcements that carried joists exist in both long walis at a point where the wall heights were raised and a clear head height of 2.30m would have been provided to the ground floor apartment. The :fireplace probably went out of use when the building was enlarged for there is no evidence of a flue in the raised section of walling. Aumbries and socket holes occur in the walls at various places probably as keeps for small hand tools. At the upper level, the original heavy stone gable has been slapped through at the centre to form a 0.90m wide passageway to the other parts of the building.

Centre Compartment. (This compartment was locked, and was not entered).This compartment is 3.80m long by 4.60m wide and is a second phase of development butted on to the original southwest end wall of the mill. It has a doorway in the northeast comer and a square window in the centre of the opposing wall. This space was probably a storage area and would have had a stairway to the attic level from which access was possible to the mill stones and kiln at opposite ends of the complex.

Kiln Compartment. This area, built as part of the second phase of development, is 3.20m long by 4.60m wide and is divided from the centre area by a heavy masonry wall. The space is accessed via a doorway in the southeast wall giving onto a passageway 1.20m wide. At the southwest end a doorway gives passage into the kiln space 3.20m long by 2.75m wide. Between the kiln and the passage is a heavy masonry wall with a fire box set low in the wall at the centre where it has been widened. On the passage side the firebox has a cast iron door that had been hung on an iron surround. Above the kiln are the remains of girders and a light iron grid that carried perforated iron ventilation plates 0.46m square. Some of these plates are still embedded into the wall at the drying floor level while many more are amongst the debris on the floor 3.40m below. The attic floor level was the same throughout the complex but was 0.60m lower than the drying floor at a comfortable working level. The perforated plates are 6mm thick, pierced with 1/16th inch (1.6mm) diameter holes deeply countersunk on the underside, arranged on a square pitch at 20mm centres.

Water Wheel. Little remains of the water wheel except for two wooden spokes, a hub on the axle-tree and some fragments of the iron rims. The wheel has been reported as being 3.70m in diameter and 0.71m wide with eight wooden spokes to each rim and hub. From the level of the lade and position of the axle-tree, the wheel was almost certainly a breast shot type.

Lade. A silted up lade is evident close to the bottom of the steeply sloping ground behind the mill to the northwest and is parallel to the river for some 130m, before curving round beyond the southwest end to re-enter the river. Evidence exists for the end of the lade having been moved 15m further to the southwest, probably when the building was enlarged. To the northeast, at the entry to the lade, a makeshift 'weir' of stones still exists in the water diverting the flow towards the lade. The now-blocked window in the mill's northwest wall would have given a view of the sluice controlling the flow of water to the wheel, and might have facilitated its operation from within the mill. <1>

NGR adjusted based on 1999-2001 vertical aerial photographs. <2>

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Map

Location

Grid reference	Centred NC 2076 5897 (88m by 112m)
Map sheet	NC25NW
Geographical Area	SUTHERLAND
Civil Parish	EDDRACHILLIS

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