Building record MAB41879 - UPPER MILL, BERVIE

Mill, built in 1788 as a flax spinning mill.

Mill, built in 1788 as a flax spinning mill. An irregular and much altered group of 1-storey and 2-storey buildings, disused after a period as a flock mill. The first mill to spin flax by water power in Scotland. Windpump nearby. Documentary sources record repairs and additions to the mill in 1837. The OS 1st edition map shows an L-plan mill with small structures abutting the west side, and there are two further buildings on the north side of the lade and two on the south side. By the time of the 2nd edition OS map, further additions had been made to the mill building, a managers house has been added to the east, and one of the buildings south of the lade has been removed. The other building on the south side of the lade was roofless by 1922. In the mid 20th century the mill was converted for use as a Shoddy (flock) mill (processing woollen rags to make a yarn that could be re-spun) and later as a chemical factory. A building survey of the mill (now comprising three attached buildings) was carried out in 2015. The original main mill is 3-storey built of irregular red sandstone blocks, the east wall almost completely replaced with brick and modern glass during conversion to a factory. Of the building on the east side only the south wall and part of the east wall appear to be original: the building on the north side has been almost totally restructured during its use as factory.

Period Notes
built 1788.

Hume, JR, 1977, Industrial Archaeology of Scotland, 221 (Bibliographic reference). SAB730.

MURRAY ARCHAEOLOGICAL SERVICES, 2015, UPPER MILL, INVERBERVIE, ABERDEENSHIRE: STANDING BUILDING SURVEY, L1 SBS (Bibliographic reference). SAB5191.

Record last edited

Oct 15 2020 3:07PM