Cairnside

NW97SE 8 9793 7095.

(NW 9793 7095) Site of Mill (NR)

OS 6" map (1909)

No trace of the mill can be seen. No information found locally.

Visited by OS (WDJ) 8 February 1968

In 1884 the probable remains of a horizontal mill comprising a lade, a planked floor and a granite millstone were found during the digging of a drain 340m NNW of Cairnside farmsteading.

G Wilson 1885; RCAHMS 1985.

In 1885 a 'curious dug-out trough like a canoe' was revealed during field-drainage operations 'among the remains of an ancient mill' which was apparently situated 390m NNW of Cairnside farmhouse and at an altitude of 25m OD on the bank of an un-named and un-navigable stream.

The trough was found beneath a layer of clay at a depth of about 2' (0.6m) and measured 9'5" (2.9m) in length, 1'11" (0.6m) and 1'5" (0.4m) in external and internal breadths respectively, and 1'3" (0.4m) in depth. The capacity was thus about 460 litres.

The lower end was cut square across and pierced by two holes which tapered from 5" (125mm) in diameter internally to 3" (76mm) externally. Each of these holes was covered by a small patch of wood which measured 1?" (31mm) in thickness, was pierced by a smaller hole, and was retained in place by ten treenails of different sizes. Three of the treenails noted on each of the longer sides of each patch measured 1" (25mm) in thickness, and the other two measured half of that. The heads of the larger examples were 'bent at a right angle like a walking-stick' in a manner similar to that used to retain a rib of the Dernaglar Loch logboat (NX25NE 6) and another (which was possibly derived from a logboat) found in the structure of the crannog at Barhapple Loch (NX25NE 2). The perforated end of the trough rested in a groove cut into the outer edge of a heavy squared beam which was adjacent to a floor of thick oak planks and close to two granite millstones, each of which measured 3' (0.9m) in diameter.

The circumstances of the discovery in the remains of a watermill and out of proximity to navigable water make it improbable that this object was a logboat and confirm its (unpublished) identification as a 'trough for conducting water to mill wheel'.

G Wilson 1885; RCAHMS 1985; MS. notes in RMS: SAS 457; R J C Mowat 1996.