Following the launch of trove.scot in February 2025 we are now planning the retiral of some of our webservices. Canmore will be switched off on 24th June 2025. Information about the closure can be found on the HES website: Retiral of HES web services | Historic Environment Scotland
Recording Your Heritage Online
Event ID 567167
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Recording Your Heritage Online
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/567167
Shawbost (Siabost) Crofting township and former weaving centre with several churches, one housing an old fashioned museum with a fascinating assortment of artefacts. Norse Mill and Kiln (Muileann Ain Choinnich) A traditional thatched horizontal click mill and drying kiln, the only working example of its kind in the Western Isles. Disused from the 1930s, it was restored by the local school in 1968/9, but again fell into disrepair and was reconstructed in 1996 by Stuart Bagshaw & Assocs. for the Norse Mill Society. The two oval structures have double-skinned walls of drystone rubble, their thatched roofs neatly roped down about twin crowsticks (maidefeannaig). The mill, standing athwart its burn, has an ungeared mechanism of timeless simplicity, little changed since Norse times. The millwheel, in a lower chamber, is connected by a vertical drive shaft to the permanently fixed millstone above. The flag-lined lade and steeper, timber-lined shoot have also been beautifully reconstructed. There were hundreds of horizontal grain mills scattered throughout Lewis by the 1840s, and maps show that by the turn of the century this number had increased.
Taken from "Western Seaboard: An Illustrated Architectural Guide", by Mary Miers, 2008. Published by the Rutland Press http://www.rias.org.uk
