Lin's Mill, Kirkliston, Edinburgh

Lin’s Mill is a building with a complex history, comprising a 17th-century mill building and a late 18th-century house, both converted into a dwelling in 1971 by Morris and Steedman.

The mill, which retains a 17th-century foundation, is a two-storey, asymmetrical L-shaped building with a basement to the rear on a sloping ground. It is constructed of rubble with margins and stugged quoins. Large, round-arched modern windows have been inserted into the fabric. The south-west elevation features paired arched windows to the outer left, with stugged sandstone margins and voussoirs. Smaller, paired rectangular windows are positioned to the right, featuring a common lintel and cill. A modern conservatory abuts the right-hand corner, incorporating a glazed arched door. A window is set at an intermediate level above the door, and there are three windows regularly spaced under the eaves. On the north-west elevation, which faces the river, remnants of a waterwheel and its associated wall are visible to the right foreground. A basement-level window is located to the left, while a blocked door is found at the basement’s outer left. A window is positioned above the waterwheel on the ground floor’s outer right. On the north-east elevation, a small rectangular plate-glass window is at basement level and an arched window opening is above ground level. The south-east elevation includes a door on the return, a narrow fixed 12-pane window to the first floor to the left of the re-entrant angle, a door in the main jamb to the left with a window above and to the left, and the north-east elevation of the house. The building is topped with a piended, red-pantiled roof and clay ridge tiles, with a wallhead stack located on the north-west elevation.

The house, which is two-storeys high and seven bays wide, adjoins the mill at a right angle on the north-east side and incorporates a former cartshed and granary. It has a rectangular plan and is constructed of random rubble with stugged, squared sandstone margins and stugged quoins. The south-east elevation features a lean-to entrance porch on the outer left, a door in the south-west return, and two windows to the right of the porch. A glazed segmental carriage arch with a door is centrally positioned, with the ground sloping to the right, and paired segmental carriage arches with modern two-leaf boarded doors. A tall, fixed 10-pane stair window is located to the left of the porch on the first floor, with regular fenestration for the remaining bays. The north-west elevation features a blank bay to the outer right, a window to the penultimate right with a modern glazed door to its left. Two arrow-slit ventilation openings are situated above the door. A marriage lintel above the door is inscribed ‘16 WL AB 80’ with a heart motif. Two windows are present to the left on each floor, with a truncated wallhead stack positioned between them. A modern conservatory sits in the north-east re-entrant angle, masking a glazed segmental carriage arch. A narrow, fixed 15-pane window is located to the outer left, and a window is positioned to the penultimate left on the first floor. The south-west elevation is gabled and features a glazed modern door in the return of the lean-to porch, a nine-pane window to the outer left, and a window to the outer right on the first floor. A gablehead stack is present. The north-east elevation, a two-bay, piend-roofed end, has a blank ground level and a first-floor window, the one to the outer left being narrower.

Most windows are 12-pane sash and case, with some modern plate glass. The roof is grey slate, with a piended form to the north-east elevation, ashlar coping to the skews at the south-west gable, and a roof-light on the south-east slope.