Invervar, Lint Mill

NN 665 483. The village of Inver was employed in the production of flax (information from W Macgregor, Easter Invervar, Glen Lyon) and a disused lint mill (NN64NE 8.01) survives at NN 6650 4834.

Visited by OS (RD) 25 September 1969

NN 665 483 (centre) A survey was carried out of the shrunken village at Invervar in advance of re-Scheduling. The village was based on flax production, centred on a late 18th-century lint mill. Only a few of the original houses of the village are still standing; most of the village as depicted on the 1st edition OS map surveyed in 1862 is now in ruins. Additional buildings and dykes were located that had previously not been recorded.

A full report has been lodged with the NMRS.

Sponsor: Historic Scotland

M Dalland 2000

Set into the foot of the slope on the S side of a natural ridge, the lint mill is circular on plan measuring 6m in diameter with 0.6m thick walls standing up to 4m in height. The mill was restored in the 1980's and now supports a conical slate roof. Access to the ground floor, where there is a door, one window and an opening out to the water wheel to the W of the building. is on the E. Above the first floor has been restored and a new wooden floor inserted. It is accessed directly from the higher ground on the N. There is a door, three windows and a square opening at floor level on the first floor.

On the W of the building, there is a wheel-pit measuring 3.8m in length and 0.6m in width. Stone footings for the wheel support measure 1.5m by 2m. Water from the mill lade was carried onto the overshoot wheel by a wooden channel. No visible remains of the outflow channel from the mill survive.

The mill lade may be traced from a modern concrete weir on the Invervar Burn some 120m to the NW at NN 6641 4841. A large boulder placed across the lade's intake, which coincides with an apparently natural channel in the bedrock, may have regulated water flow. The lade may be followed from the burn for about 85m where it is interrupted, possibly through the installation of a modern water supply for the Invervar village. After a gap it resumes for a further 19m. The upper part of the lade, which still retains water, measures 0.6m in width and 0.4m in depth with a slight, 1.5m to 2m wide and 0.2m high, bank on the lower side. The water feeds back into the burn at the S end of the segment. The remainder of the lade is dry. It is cut into the natural ridge to the N of the mill and has a well-defined channel measuring 0.6m wide at the base and up to 1.1m in depth. There is a slight bank along the E side.

The lint mill was constructed by Ewan Cameron in the latter part of the 18th century during a period that saw a sharp increase in the construction of lint mills some fifty years after the first lint mill had been built in Scotland (Shaw 1984). It is depicted on James Stobie's map of 1783 at which time the township comprised the mill and six buildings. The mill is likely to have gone out of use during the first half of the 19th century. It is not shown on John Thomson's map of 1827 and, at a time when most of the township buildings were still roofed, it is omitted from the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Perthshire 1867, sheet xlvii). The building does, however, appear on the 2nd edition of the map (Perthshire 1900, sheet xlvii) without being identified as a mill.

M Dalland and L Baker (Headland Archaeology) 11 July 2000; NMRS MS 1039/32

J Stobie 1783, J Thomson 1827, J Shaw 1984

NN 66491 48345 to NN 66473 48248 A watching brief was undertaken on 6 June 2016 during trenching for a new domestic water supply to Glen Lyon Cottage. The 110m long trench, which ran along the W edge of the 18th/19th-century industrial village of Invervar (SAM3388) recorded no finds or features of archaeological significance.

Archive and report: NRHE

Funder: Mr Philip Talbot

John Lewis – Scotia Archaeology

(Source: DES, Volume 17)