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Publication Account

Date 1986

Event ID 1017609

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Publication Account

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1017609

Built as a grain mill shortly after 1797, this three-storeyed circular windmill-tower stands complete to the original wall-head some 32 ft 6 in (9.9m) above ground. The walls have a pronounced external batter, giving the tower an unusually sturdy profile, the overall diameter at the top (14 ft; 4.27m) being only slightly more than half the basal diameter of 27 ft (8.23m). At the date of survey, adjacent ranges on the E of the tower contained the remains of a later kiln, threshing-machine and an engine-house, while on the W a two-storeyed dwelling-house and ancillary buildings were grouped around a courtyard.

The interior of the tower retains much machinery and the principal drive-shaft. Previous investigators were misled into believing that some of the mechanism may have been original, but detailed examination showed that the shaft and the stones were driven through gearing from below, not from above, and none of the components was demonstrably original. Some of the timbers used for framing the machinery may have been in secondary use, but, to judge from the wall-sockets, the original floor-levels appear to have been retained. The mill had been converted to steam-power in about the middle of the 19th century, and subsequently a gas-engine was used . At the wall-head a masonry channel with indented sockets is all that now survives of the kerb of the original rotating cap.

Information from ‘Monuments of Industry: An Illustrated Historical Record’, (1986).

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