Publication Account
Date 1985
Event ID 1016152
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1016152
Corn and cloth had long been worked in water-mills at Cramond. Industrial iron-working, including nailmaking, began a little after 1752 and the Carron
Company, later to become internationally renowned, took over in 1759 only to sell out to the Cadell family by 1770.
Nothing now remains of the highest mills, Peggie's Mill (1781) and Dowie's Mill (1782), where spades and hoops were made. At Cockle Mill, the lowest mill, there are traces of successive weirs, a fine tidal dock and the former office buildings, now private houses. This was the rolling and slitting mill from c 1752, described by John Rennie in 1782 as having 3 water wheels. The principal forge, however, was at Fair-a-Far, a little upstream; from c 1778 its products included plough socs, girdles and cart axles. The walls still stand a storey high, incorporating the corbels used to support a spur-wheel which operated at the rim of the main water-wheel and presumably drove such small pieces of equipment as a bellows, shears or grindstone.
The substantial weir (with modernised fish ladder) was constructed by 1839 to replace another upstream. It helped supply water to two small wheels and to an undershot wheel whose diameter, approximately 4 m,
can be gauged from scrape marks on the mill wall.
The present buildings represent the 'west' forge; the 'east' forge has disappeared. Storage sheds for coal and scrap iron were built into the hillside, whilst slag was tipped into the river up to 50 m downstream. Much of it was used to extend and build up the river-bank, laid over large tree-trunks set end-on to the river and occasionally visible through erosion. About 1839 a light tramway linked this mill to the dock at Cockle Mill; the mouth of the river, too, is lined with a substantial stone-built quay where iron was brought in and the finished products exported.
Industrial housing, now modernised, survives in Cramond village and at Cockle Mill; above the gorge at Cockle Mill, above the worst of the dirt and smoke and noise, stands the solidly respectable manager's house!
Cramond also has a pleasing Auld Brig (NT 179754), the remains of an important Roman fort and bathhouse, an interesting churchyard, a mansion house, a tower-house and perhaps the last little river-mouth ferry in Scotland (passengers only).
Information from 'Exploring Scotland’s Heritage, Lothian and Borders’ (1985).
