Montgarrie Mill Detail of typical chute with counter-weighted door. Once the drying process is complete, dried grain is swept through these openings into hoppers below Digital image of D 54528

Description Montgarrie Mill Detail of typical chute with counter-weighted door. Once the drying process is complete, dried grain is swept through these openings into hoppers below Digital image of D 54528

Date 20/5/1999

Collection Records of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS), Edinbu

Catalogue Number SC 743754

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of D 54528

Scope and Content Chute next to the kiln floor, Montgarrie Mills, Aberdeenshire Montgarrie Mills were built c.1886 on the site of a much older mill. The site comprises a three-storeyed block with a basement level, surmounted by a distinctive Aberdeenshire vent over the kiln area. This working mill includes a ten-arm wood and iron overshot mill-wheel driving five pairs of millstones to mill oatmeal. This shows a counter-weighted door covering a chute next to the kiln floor. Oats are dried and toasted on the pierced tiles over the furnaces on the floor below, before being swept down the chutes to storage hoppers. Oats and other grains need to be dried before they are ground, as excess moisture in the grains produces a sticky paste which in extreme cases must be cleaned from the millstones by hand. The surface of a millstone is dressed with a pattern of grooves which are set to either crush or separate the husk and inner, floury parts of the grain. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/743754

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap