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Edinburgh, Cramond, Peggie's Mill
Paper Mill (Period Unassigned), Watermill (Period Unassigned)
Site Name Edinburgh, Cramond, Peggie's Mill
Classification Paper Mill (Period Unassigned), Watermill (Period Unassigned)
Alternative Name(s) River Almond; Peggy's Mill; Pigas Mill; Piggies Mill; Edinburgh, Cramond, Mill
Canmore ID 90387
Site Number NT17NE 99
NGR NT 1813 7597
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/90387
- Council Edinburgh, City Of
- Parish Edinburgh (Edinburgh, City Of)
- Former Region Lothian
- Former District City Of Edinburgh
- Former County Midlothian
NT17NE 99 1813 7597
'A paper mill worked by water power and employeing about 20 hands. It is the porperty of Messrs. Caddell and Co.'
Ordnance Survey Name Book, 1852.
NMRS REFERENCE:
Peggy's Mill and Cottages which were Category C Listed were demolished c. 1964.
Information from Demolitions catalogue held in RCAHMS Library.
On the E side of the River Almond, 350m NE of Dowie's Mill (NT17NE 98) is Peggie's Mill or Peggy's Mill, Pigas Mill or even Piggies Mill, a name that may possibly derive from the 'pickieman' who was a mill servant responsible for the upkeep of the mill machinery.
Referred to along with Dowie's Mill, in a charter of 1697, the lands were bought by Lady Glenorchy in 1776, the two mills then passing from her to the Cadell family, Peggie's Mill in 1781, Dowie's in 1782 (NT17NE 98).
Peggie's Mill was for a while after 1781, used by the spademakers and even served for making hoops before it became in 1815 the Cramond papermill, an attempt to diversify after the fall in demand for ironwork after the end of the Napoleonic wars.
A new boiler was installed in 1856, and in 1859 the mill equipment consisted of mill buildings with a water fall of ten feet. The buildings included a drying loft with size-house beneath and a further detached loft and washouse, mill machinery including two vats, three presses, pipes etc., a finishing house and rag house, a rag shed, three paper presses and a foreman's house and two other dwelling houses with grounds of about 9.5 acres. The paper produced was of a poor quality.
The mill was leased in 1862 and in 1877 the two mills were sold. From 1881 the mill was used as a gelatine works and it is as this it is depicted on the OS Revision map of 1894 (Revision of the OS 25-inch map, Edinburghshire, 1894). From about 1922, the mill was used by John Weller for furniture making until 1939 when a shortage of labour and the need to produce furniture to very limited specifications forced him out of business.
Though Peggie's Mill was the last to operate in the area, there is now less of it than any other, the public path passes over the floor of the main mill shop, of the rest little remains, though some foundations survive up to 5ft on the river side.
P Cadell 1973.
