Note

Date 7 April 2015

Event ID 999654

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Note

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/999654

Knockando woollen mill consists or restored mill house, cottage, textile mill, mill pond, new visitor centre and new weaving shed (which was built as the conservation workshop). The mill itself is a two-storey, wood-framed, masonry build with corrugated roof with wooden gable barge boards and dates in its present form from the 1860s. The power source was a lade was piped to an overshot water wheel, replaced in 1949 by electricity.

Sir William Roy's map of 1749 (Roy Military Survey of Scotland 1747-55,see http://maps.nls.uk/geo/roy/#zoom=14&lat=57.4506&lon=-3.3160&layers=roy-highlands) depicts buildings at Knockando, near the current mill site. In 1784 a William and Ann Grant are noted as having possession of the mill and croft and there are references to a waulkmill fulling/shrinking woollen textiles. The Grants held it until the 1830s when it changed hands. In the early days (by 1829, the tear of the great flood) the mill would have scoured, dyed, waulked and tentered woollen textiles while spinning and weaving would be put out as piece work to the community. Hand-cranked carding machines and a partially automated spinning mule were installed. Weaving was introduced in 1848. The census of 1851 notes a wool carder, spinner and weaver on site. By 1861, spinning of wool by hand and weaving done on a handloom. Eighteen acres of land was rented from the local Laird with some cattle, potatoes, oats, turnips and barley grown.

In 1864 a new mill building was built and water power installed by A. Smith and Son (with the 14 feet diameter waterwheel installed in the 1870s (second hand from a former meal mill at Pitchroy; the waterwheel pit was deepened)) but the mill work was still mostly done by hand. In the 1880s, the weaving shed was added to accommodate the power looms installed.

In 1904 the spinning mule was installed and the pipes laid to carry the water from the mill pond to the waterwheel (which meant remodelling the lade) and the extension of the south west to allow the insertion of the carding sets (bought second hand from Laidlaw's Mill in Rothimay).

Knockando was at its peak in the period 1902 - 1938. In 1919 the automatic feed set was bought to automate the feeding of wool into the carding machine. Knockando produced blankets for the First World War through Government contracts. It was at this time (1915) that the drying shed was built.

The woolmill house was built in 1903 and the old byre cottage was demolished. In 1945 another great flood destroyed the 1880s weaving shed. In 1949 the waterwheel was disconnected as electricity enabled the instalation of small electric motors on the machinery. The Knockando Wool Trust was founded in 2000. Since 2012, with the large scale restoration of buildings and machinery, Knockando has continued to produce fine quality tweed.

Information from Knockando Mill, Visitor Centre, December 2014.