Print

MHG19771 - Lochinver Mill

Summary

No summary available.

Type and Period (2)

Protected Status

Full Description

The saw mill (NC02SE 21) is still worked but now electrically operated, wheel having been removed. No evidence of 'Mill Town' (name is not known locally) was seen; area lies within the grounds of 'Culag' Hotel and has been generally parked and planted.
Visited by OS (F R H) 12 May 1962.

Culag Mill worked as a meal mill until the 1890's and possibly later. Converted to saw milling, it served this purpose until 1930's. Building is still in fair condition, but water wheel and machinery have been removed. <1>

(Location cited as NC 095 221). Sawmill and corn mill, Lochinver, 18-19th century. The sawmill is a rectangular one-storey and basement rubble building with a cirrugated-iron roof, and the corn mill is a two-storey rubble building on an irregular plan, with a wooden external stair. A waterwheel (or wheels) was (or were) mounted between the mills. The sawmill is disused, and the corn mill is now a dwelling-house.
J R Hume 1977. <2>

No change except that the mill (NC02SE 21) is no longer in operation. The former mill wheel was of the vertical type.
Visited by OS (J B) 11 August 1980.

Surveyed by the Assynt's Hidden Lives project in November 2009. The mill is a combination of two buildings aligned roughly NW-SE just to the south of the bridge across the river at Lochinver. The 18th/19th century buildings consist of a rectangular, one-storey, rubble stone building, now unroofed, which was a sawmill. Directly across the lade and attached to it by a small metal bridge is a much larger two-storey, rubble stone building. This was cornmill and has now been converted to modern housing. The lade which separates them is approximately 1.5m wide and rock-cut, taken from a bend in the river higher upstream to the south-west. Towards the upper end of the lade the sides are rendered rubble walling. The sawmill building has several blocked up openings in each of its walls, some are blocked with modern breeze-block material and some with much older masonry. <3>

This is not the original mill on the River Culag - see MHG63189 for the probable site of the original mill. The reference to 'Mill Town' in the original 1962 note in this record refers to an estate map by John Home dating to 1773-4 which shows a mill and its associated settlement. However, both are shown on the opposite side of the river around 85m to the northwest of the current former mill [IS-L 18/03/2024].

Sources/Archives (3)

Map

Location

Grid reference	Centred NC 0945 2204 (40m by 31m) (2 map features)
Map sheet	NC02SE
Geographical Area	SUTHERLAND
Civil Parish	ASSYNT

Finds (0)

Related Monuments/Buildings (0)

Related Investigations/Events (1)

External Links (1)