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Islay, Lagavulin Distillery

Distillery (19th Century) (1816), Pier (Period Unassigned)

Site Name Islay, Lagavulin Distillery

Classification Distillery (19th Century) (1816), Pier (Period Unassigned)

Alternative Name(s) Lagganmhouillin Distillery

Canmore ID 38022

Site Number NR44NW 42

NGR NR 4043 4572

NGR Description Centred NR 40430 45720

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/38022

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
Canmore Disclaimer. © Bluesky International Limited 2025. Public Sector Viewing Terms

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Digital Images

Lagavulin Distillery, Kiln.
Interior view of Kiln roof and drying floor.
Lagavulin Distillery, Kiln.
Interior view of Kiln roof and drying floor.Lagavulin Distillery, Filling Store.
View of inscribed tomb slab affixed to gable of Filling Store.Lagavulin Distillery, Pier.
View of Piled Wooden Pier.View of cantilever stair on south tower at Old Malt barn, Lagavulin Distillery, Islay.Lagavulin Distillery.
Interior view of selection of wooden implements used at the malting stage.General oblique aerial view of Lagavulin Distillery with the remains of the fort and Dunivaig Castle adjacent, taken from the SSE.Oblique aerial view.Lagavulin Distillery
Detailed view of distillery from W, with lade in foreground and kilns, still house and boilerhouse chimney in backgroundLagavulin Distillery
View from NW showing boilerhouse and associated square-section red-brick chimneyLagavulin Distillery
View from S of W half of distillery, viewed from the distillery's own pierLagavulin Distillery
View from SW of range of offices at N side of distilleryLagavulin Distillery, Pier.
Detail of Piled Wooden Pier.Lagavulin Distillery, Old Malt Barn.
Interior view showing mono-rail wicker-basket system (travellers) for conveying steeped barley from steeps on to malting floor.Lagavulin Distillery.
Photographic copy of survey sheet of sketches.
Titled: 'Details of Barley-Band and Bogey,Lagavulin Distillery, Islay'.Lagavulin Distillery, Filling Store.
Detail of cask-filling unit.Lagavulin Distillery.
View of old-style peat braziers or 'chauffeurs' from the kiln.(1)Lagavulin Distillery, Old Malt Barn.
View of specimen half shuttered window.Lagavulin Distillery, Old Malt Barn.
View from West, showing plaque reading 'Lagavulin Distillery, White Horse Distillers Ltd. Est. 1742'Lagavulin Distillery, view from South East. Digital image of A/57357.Oblique aerial view of Lagavulin Distillery and the remains of Dunyvaig Castle, taken from the SSE.Oblique aerial view of Lagavulin Distillery and the remains of Dunyvaig Castle, taken from the SSE.Lagavulin Distillery
General view of distillery from SELagavulin Distillery
View from S of W half of distillery, viewed from the distillery's own pierOblique aerial view centred on the whisky distillery, pier and cottages with the remains of the castle adjacent, taken from the SSE.Oblique aerial view.Lagavulin Distillery, Filling Store.
Interior view, cask-filling operation.Lagavulin Distillery, Filling Store.
Interior view, including 'spirit-receiver' and gallery.Lagavulin Distillery
Distant general view of distillery from SELagavulin Distillery
General view of distillery from SELagavulin Distillery
View from W of W side of bonded warehouses, with barrels in yard (foreground)Lagavulin Distillery.
View of Bell from former Lagavulin Church.Islay, Lagavulin Distillery
View from WSW showing WSW front of malt barns and kilns with chimney in backgroundIslay, Lagavulin Distillery
Distant view from SE showing S front of distillery with pier in foregroundLagavulin Distillery
Detailed view of distillery from W, with lade in foreground and kilns, still house and boilerhouse chimney in backgroundLagavulin Distillery
View from W of W side of bonded warehouses, with barrels in yard (foreground)Lagavulin Distillery
View from NE of range of former floor-maltings, with boilerhouse chimney visible (distant left)Oblique aerial view.Lagavulin Distillery
General view of distillery from WLagavulin Distillery
General view of distillery from WSWLagavulin Distillery
View from S of E half of distillery, viewed from the distillery's own pierLagavulin Distillery.
Photographic copy of survey plan.
Titled : 'Grain-Trap in Loft-Floor'.Lagavulin Distillery, Illicit Still Apparatus.
Photographic copy of part of sheet of survey sketches.
Titled: 'Pot Still Apparatus' 'Tin Pot Still'
Ink.Lagavulin Distillery, Filling Store.
View of man 'cask-filling'.Lagavulin Distillery, Still House.
Interior, view of spirit safe.Lagavulin Distillery
Distant general view of distillery from SELagavulin Distillery
View from SE across yard of boilerhouse, chimney, and still houseLagavulin Distillery
View from S of E half of distillery, viewed from the distillery's own pierLagavulin Distillery.
Aerial photograph from South East.Oblique aerial view.Lagavulin Distillery, Filling Store.
Interior view, showing Excise Office.Lagavulin Distillery
General view of distillery from SELagavulin Distillery
General view of distillery from WLagavulin Distillery
View from E showing main production buildings (left), kilns (centre), and former floor-maltings (right)Lagavulin Distillery.
Photographic copy of survey sketch.
Titled: 'Detail of three way shoot'.Lagavulin Distillery, Illicit Still Apparatus.
Photographic copy of part of sheet of survey sketches.
Titled: 'Pot-Still Apparatus, Lagavulin' 'Copper Pot Still'.
Ink.Lagavulin Distillery.
Aerial photograph of Distillery and Lagavulin Bay.General oblique aerial view of Lagavulin Distillery with the remains of the fort and Dunivaig Castle adjacent, taken from the SSE.Lagavulin Distillery
General view of distillery from WSWLagavulin Distillery
View from SW of range of offices at N side of distilleryLagavulin Distillery
View from E showing main production buildings (left), kilns (centre), and former floor-maltings (right)Lagavulin Distillery.
Aerial photograph of Distillery and Lagavulin Bay.Lagavulin Distillery.
View of old-style peat braziers or 'chauffeurs' from the kiln.(2)Lagavulin Distillery.
View of old-style peat braziers or 'chauffeurs' from the kiln.(3)Lagavulin Distillery, Filling Store.
View of 'spirit-receiver' and branch pipes to filling station.Lagavulin Distillery, Filling Store.(1)
View of cask filling operation.Lagavulin Distillery
Distant general view of distillery from SELagavulin Distillery
View from S of W half of distillery, viewed from the distillery's own pierLagavulin Distillery
Photographic copy of sheet of survey drawings of Illicit Still Apparatus.
Ink.Lagavulin Distillery.
Detail of illicit-still apparatus: copper pot-still, head and worm (within worm-tub)Lagavulin Distillery, Kiln.
View of Iron doors of furnace and service door.View of Lagavulin Distillery from South East.Lagavulin Distillery
General view of distillery from WLagavulin Distillery
View from NW showing boilerhouse and associated square-section red-brick chimneyOblique aerial view centred on the whisky distillery, pier and cottages with the remains of the castle adjacent, taken from the SSE.Oblique aerial view.Oblique aerial view.Lagavulin Distillery, Filling Store.
View of man knocking home the bung.Lagavulin Distillery, Filling Store.
Interior, general view.Lagavulin Distillery
General view of distillery from SSE, viewed from the ruins of Dunvaig CastleLagavulin Distillery.
Interior view of selection of implements used at the malting stage (and germination).Lagavulin Distillery.
Photographic copy of survey sketch.
Titled: 'Section through chute and rollers'Lagavulin Distillery, Still House.
Interior view of wooden-stave intermediate spirit-receiver.Oblique aerial view.Islay, Lagavulin Distillery, NR44NW 42, Ordnance Survey index card, RectoLagavulin Distillery, Filling Store.(2)
View of cask filling operation.Lagavulin Distillery
General view of distillery from SSE, viewed from the ruins of Dunvaig CastleLagavulin Distillery
Detailed view of distillery from W, with lade in foreground and kilns, still house and boilerhouse chimney in backgroundLagavulin Distillery
View from SE across yard of boilerhouse, chimney, and still houseLagavulin Distillery.
Photographic copy of Barley Bogey.
Titled: 'Barley Bogey (casting removed).Lagavulin Distillery, Filling Store.
View of filling cask with spirit.Lagavulin Distillery, Malt Loft.
Interior view from North.Lagavulin Distillery, Malt Loft.
View of Barley Boxes (for spreading 'green' malt on kiln floor).Lagavulin Distillery, Old Malt Barn.
Interior view of Barley Bogie in malt-loft.Interior view of Still house, Lagavulin DistilleryIslay, Lagavulin Distillery.  General view from WSWLagavulin Distillery
General view of distillery from SSE, viewed from the ruins of Dunvaig CastleOblique aerial view.Oblique aerial view.Oblique aerial view.Lagavulin Distillery, Filling Store.
View of weighing a filled cask.

First 100 images shown. See the Collections panel (below) for a link to all digital images.

Administrative Areas

  • Council Argyll And Bute
  • Parish Kildalton And Oa
  • Former Region Strathclyde
  • Former District Argyll And Bute
  • Former County Argyll

Archaeology Notes

NR44NW 42.00 centred 40430 45720

Distillery [NAT]

OS (GIS) MasterMap, April 2010.

NR44NW 42.01 NR 4045 4579 Lagavulin Distillery, Cottages

NR44NW 42.02 NR 40454 45628 to NR 40450 45663 Pier (Lagavulin Bay)

(Location cited as NR 404 457). Lagavulin Distillery, early 19th century and later. A small distillery with a 3-storey range of malt barns and a pair of pyramidal-roofed kilns. Most of the ther buildings are modern. There is a prominent red-brick chimney. The complex is served by a wood-piled pier.

J R Hume 1977.

Barnard's reflections, made in 1887, state that Lagavulin Distillery is said to be one of the oldest distilleries in Islay. The business having been founded in 1742. At that period it is said to have consisted of ten small and separate smuggling bothys for the manufacture of "Moonlight". Early in the 19th century the buildings were converted into a legal distillery, and in the year 1835 they came into the possession of J.L.Mackie and Company.

The Maltings, which were arranged on one side of a long open court, were 150 feet long and 36 feet broad. Attached to these buildings was a Kiln, measuring 36 feet by 28 feet. The Still House contained two old Pot Stills, one of them being a Wash Still holding 1,200 gallons. The other was a Low-wines and Feints Still holding 650 gallons.

The annual output at this time was 75,000 gallons. The make being largely used for blending purposes.

A Barnard 1969.

A RCAHMS photographic survey was conducted, during October 1999, in order to enhance and augment the National Monuments Record Scotland holdings. At the time of this survey the Distillery was still in use and had also been adapted for visits.

Visited by RCAHMS (MKO), August 1999.

Activities

Field Visit (1980)

At the period of survey there were eight active commercial distilleries on Islay, together with the remains of a ninth, that of Lochindaal at Port Charlotte, which was closed and partly dismantled in 1929. The list, in chronological order of foundation, comprises Bowmore (1779; NR309599), Ardbeg (1794; NR414462), Lagavulin (1816; NR404457), Laphroaig (1820; NR387452), Port Ellen (1825; NR358458), Lochindaal (1829; NR251584), Caol Ila (1846; NR429700), Bunnahabhainn (1881; NR420732) and Bruichladdich (1881 ;NR264612) (en.1). Many of these were founded as a result of general legislation enacted between 1816 and 1823, and by the 1830s there were as many as sixteen licensed distilleries on the island, some of which appear to have been small and relatively short-lived concerns. With its ideal local supplies of water, peat and barley, Islay had by that time established a long tradition in the making of pot-still malt whisky on a domestic basis, including much illicit distillation; thus some of the larger businesses such as Laphroaig, Lagavulin and Ardbeg seem to have grown up from farming and smuggling origins, while Port Ellen distillery was converted from a malt mill (en.2). Since the early 1960s they have been extensively modernised, particularly with regard to plant and equipment, and this article presents a summary description only of those early or traditional features that have survived.

All the distilleries were built on the coast for direct access by sea. Those at Port Ellen, and notably Bowmore, are near harbours, and the remainder, apart from Laphroaig, are equipped with piers or jetties. At Laphroaig coal and other supplies were delivered by Clyde 'puffers' and then trans-shipped into small boats, or at low tide into carts, for movement ashore. The whisky was floated out to the ships in casks lashed together and a similar practice was also adopted at Lochindaal (en.3) The most important factor influencing their location, however, was water-supply, which was drawn from the neighbouring uphill lochs, springs and burns. In the case of Bowmore, it became necessary to cut a nine-mile lade in order to tap new sources (en.4), and at Ardbeg an artificial channel links Lochs Iarnan and Uigendail serving the distillery. At Laphroaig and Lagavulin nearby dams were intended to conserve the water-supply in the event of drought.

The principal buildings of a distillery layout are the multi-storeyed malt-barns, the extensive warehouse ranges, and the distillation block itself. They present impressive and picturesque groupings, characterised by the pyramidal pagoda-style roofs of the kilns and in former times, by tall chimney-stacks.

The earlier distilleries evolved piecemeal, and Laphroaig, whose physical development is well documented from 1840 onwards, is typical in its sequence of building-phases which culminated in a complex nucleated layout by about 1900 (en.5). At the later distilleries, such as Bruichladdich and Bunnahabhainn, the main processing units were disposed in a regular courtyard layout (en.6). Bruichladdich has a formal entrance-range incorporating terminal pyramidal roofs, and Bunnahabhainn is almost fortress-like in the treatment of its extensive seaward frontage with central high wall and portal.

The building-materials consist of local rubble and slate, though latterly brickwork was increasingly used, and at Bruichladdich the main frontage and still-house range were built of two-leaf pre-cast concrete blocks, then a fairly new material. The external walls are whitewashed, and internally the floors and roofs of the earlier buildings are framed in timber, supported on cast-iron columns over the wider spans.

The typical malt-barn is of two or three storeys, including a barley-loft for initial storage of the grain, furnished with a loading-door and barley-hoist. The lower or 'malting floors', which are surfaced with quarry-tiles, have restricted head-room and are subdivided into long working-aisles by regular rows of columns. The floors are sparingly lit from the side-walls by small regular-spaced windows fitted with internal wooden shutters for controlling the temperature conditions within. Normally contiguous with the malt-barn, and at the opposite end to the 'steeps' - used for soaking the barley prior to germination - is the kiln for drying the 'green' malt. The kiln averages about 10·7 m square, and at ground level contains a central brick furnace surmounted by a hopper-shaped smoke-funnel whose sheet-metal sides spread outwards to encompass the drying-floor, usually about 4· 3 m above. The earliest surviving malt kiln-barns on Islay, probably dating from the 1850s, are the two opposing ranges at Ardbeg, one of which has a double-kiln arrangement, and that at Port Ellen, which incorporates a masonry elevator tower at the end opposite to the kiln. A later and now disused barn at Lagavulin, which also has a double-kiln arrangement along its s side, retains a fine timber truss-roof and a barley-bogey, and is of special interest for its overhead monorail system for conveying grain in wicker baskets over the malting-floor (en.7). Well-preserved iron steeps survive at Port Ellen and Bruichladdich.

The 'mash-house', 'tun room', and 'still-house' are invariably grouped together under one or more roofs, and contain a complex array of vessels and apparatus. Most of the plant has to be renewed periodically but although the few early features that survive are no older than the 1880s, the major components such as the fermenting vessels and copper stills preserve much of their traditional style and character (en.8). Old-style mash-tuns are to be found at Laphroaig and Bruichladdich, and one of the last riveted stills to survive in Scotland also remains in use at Bruichladdich. Adjoining the still-house, or situated nearby, is the 'filling-store', where the newly-made spirit is put into casks. The spirit receiver at Caol IIa, which is situated in the warehouse, has a capacity of 8,500 gallons and is by far the largest on the island; another good example can be seen at Lagavulin.

The 1823 legislation included provision for the storage of whisky in bond without payment of duty, and warehouses progressively became more numerous and space-consuming. Most are of single-storeyed type, disposed in long contiguous ranges designed for the storage of casks in tiers of four or five, and having earth floors to preserve a moist atmosphere. Attractive examples exist at Port Ellen, dated between 1846 and 1907 (en.9), and also along the shore at the former Lochindaal distillery at Port Charlotte. All are whitewashed and characterised by their barred and louvred windows; they also have stout wooden doors secured with heavy locking-bars and double shrouded padlocks. Occasionally, as at Lagavulin and Bruichladdich, the basements of malt-barns were used for storage and at Ardbeg and Caol IIa the warehouses are multi-storeyed. The three-storeyed building at Caol IIa, which has pilastered brick walls and timber floors slatted to promote air circulation, dates from about 1900 and is the last and most impressive of the traditional-style warehouses to have been erected on Islay.

Ancillary buildings worthy of note include a peat-shed constructed entirely of timber, which stood in the courtyard at Ardbeg until 1979 (en.10), and a cooperage repair-shop at Bunnahabhainn which is still equipped with a fine range of cooper's tools. Suitable offices and living-accommodation for the resident manager also usually formed part of the distillery complex, and living-quarters for the Excise Officer were a statutory requirement. After 1893, a standard house was specified for this purpose (en.11), normally a substantial house of four bedrooms, and examples are to be found at Caol IIa and Laphroaig, dating from about 1896 and 1905respectively. Those at Ardbeg, Bruichladdich, and Port Ellen are semi-detached dwellings, originally designed to accommodate both the Excise Officer and the Distillery Manager.

INSCRIBED STONES

(I) Affixed to the gable of the filling-store at Lagavulin isa slate tombstone roughly wrought, splayed at the foot, and bearing a commemorative inscription to Angus Johnson of Lagavulin, who died in 1820.

(2) Lying in the cask-yard at Port Ellen is a dismantled lintel-stone, 2·3 m in length by 0·46 m in width, bearing within a small rectangular panel the incised inscription, A.K. Mackay & Co/1825.

RCAHMS 1984, visited at various dates in 1980

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