Sebay Mill
Grain Mill (Period Unassigned), Watermill (Period Unassigned)
Site Name Sebay Mill
Classification Grain Mill (Period Unassigned), Watermill (Period Unassigned)
Alternative Name(s) Burn Of Langskaill
Canmore ID 3055
Site Number HY50SW 23
NGR HY 51554 04672
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/3055
- Council Orkney Islands
- Parish St Andrews And Deerness
- Former Region Orkney Islands Area
- Former District Orkney
- Former County Orkney
HY50SW 23 51554 04672
(Location cited as HY 516 047). Sebay Mill, rebuilt 1854. A massive three-storey rubble building on an L plan. The main range is four bays long. There were two pairs of stones driven by an overshot wheel. The wheel and machinery have been removed.
J R Hume 1977.
This mainly 19th-century rubble-built mill was driven by the water taken from the Burn of Langskaill. The mill complex consisted of a slate roofed main building and kiln, and a 2-storey flat-roof engine house. The engine house, which does not appear on the Ordnance Survey 25-inch map of 1902 (Orkney, sheet CXV.2), contained an internal combustion engine which assisted the water wheel when the water level was low. The kiln and engine house areas were butt jointed to the main building suggesting that the kiln area was not integral to the original mill layout. The main mill building housed 2 sets of millstones 1.40m in diameter which had been removed. There was no trace of machinery within any of the buildings. The mill was no longer in use as a mill by 1946 (the last miller was Graham Bewes). The buildings were in use as a motor car repair works on the date of survey.
The waterwheel, which had been removed, was of the overshot type measuring 4.0m in maximum diameter with a maximum width of 1.4m. The partially surviving concrete lade measured 1.0m in width and 0.30m in depth and the 'on/off door' controlling water feed to the wheel was in situ on the date of survey.
Information from Scottish Industrial Archaeology Survey (GJD) 25 October 1981.
NMRS MS/500/35/32.
Publication Account (1977)
(Location cited as HY 516 047). Sebay Mill, rebuilt 1854. A massive three-storey rubble building on an L plan. The main range is four bays long. There were two pairs of stones driven by an overshot wheel. The wheel and machinery have been removed.
J R Hume 1977.
Field Visit (25 October 1981)
This mainly 19th-century rubble-built mill was driven by the water taken from the Burn of Langskaill. The mill complex consisted of a slate roofed main building and kiln, and a 2-storey flat-roof engine house. The engine house, which does not appear on the Ordnance Survey 25-inch map of 1902 (Orkney, sheet CXV.2), contained an internal combustion engine which assisted the water wheel when the water level was low. The kiln and engine house areas were butt jointed to the main building suggesting that the kiln area was not integral to the original mill layout. The main mill building housed 2 sets of millstones 1.40m in diameter which had been removed. There was no trace of machinery within any of the buildings. The mill was no longer in use as a mill by 1946 (the last miller was Graham Bewes). The buildings were in use as a motor car repair works on the date of survey.
The waterwheel, which had been removed, was of the overshot type measuring 4.0m in maximum diameter with a maximum width of 1.4m. The partially surviving concrete lade measured 1.0m in width and 0.30m in depth and the 'on/off door' controlling water feed to the wheel was in situ on the date of survey.
Information from Scottish Industrial Archaeology Survey (GJD) 25 October 1981.
NMRS MS/500/35/32.
Field Visit (29 July 2010)
This mill has been converted to self-catering accommodation.
Visited by RCAHMS (MMD/IA), 29 July 2010.
