Clashnessie, Horizontal Mill
Horizontal Mill (Period Unassigned)
Site Name Clashnessie, Horizontal Mill
Classification Horizontal Mill (Period Unassigned)
Alternative Name(s) Clashnessie, Norse Mill
Canmore ID 4516
Site Number NC03SE 6.01
NGR NC 0557 3083
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/4516
- Council Highland
- Parish Assynt
- Former Region Highland
- Former District Sutherland
- Former County Sutherland
NC03SE 6.01 0557 3083.
(NC 0558 3083) Corn Mill (NAT)
OS 6" map, Sutherland, 2nd ed., (1907)
Shown on Home's Survey of Assynt 1774-5
J Home 1774-5.
The mill ruin measures 7m x 4m of drystone walling, maximum height c. 3m. The horizontally driven wheel has gone but several old mill-stones survive, as do the courses of mill stream and race.
Visited by OS (F R H) 16 May 1962.
(Location cited as NC 056 309). Norse Mill, Clashnessie, 18th to 19th century. The complete but roofless ruin of a single-storey, rectangular dry-stone building, with two rounded corners. There is a pair of 42ins (1.06m) diameter stones in position, a third to one side, and a 48ins (1.22m) stone. The iron shaft of the tirl is still in position. The roof of the underhouse was wooden.
J R Hume 1977.
This mill, shown as an unannotated structure on OS 6" map, (1969) at NC 0557 3083, is generally as described [by OS] above. The upper millstone, 1.1 m in diameter, is still in position on the drive shaft, and the lower stone is slightly displaced below. Two loose millstones lie abandoned close by.
Visited by OS (J B) 5 August 1980.
Field Visit (1 April 2009 - 3 April 2009)
SRP Assynt Clashnessie Township survey
Srp Note (16 August 2010)
The Mill is a Scheduled Ancient Monument and has been described and photographed on previous occasions. However it is not the mill shown on on Home's survey map of 1774 which lay upstream and on the opposite side of the Abhainn Clais an Eas. Locals recall a time when at least three mill sites existed within a few hundred metres of each other. The mill is very similar appearance to that in Glenleraig. Since that settlement at Clashnessie was entirely cleared in the 1820's both mills can be assumed to post-date the Home map and pre-date the clearances so that a date in the first decades of the 19th century seems most likely for the present structure. Previous reports have paid little attention to the Leat which channelled water from the Abhainn Clais an Eas at a point now underneath the modern road bridge. Its course can easily be followed and the stones which created the floor and edges of the final section survive largely in place. The Mill and Leat were surveyed at 1:100.
Information from Historic Assynt
