Esk Mills, Station Road, Musselburgh

Esk Mills, Station Road, Musselburgh

Esk Mills is a substantial industrial complex of the mid to late 19th century, constructed in phases around a courtyard facing the River Esk.

The river frontage was built in 1854 as a long single storey mill with mixed classical and castellated motifs. The composition is symmetrical, with slightly advanced crenellated screen walls expressed as end and centre pavilions. The end pavilions feature blind Venetian windows beneath square hood moulds that continue as string courses below the parapet. The centre pavilion contains a central blocked arched doorway with heavy steel lifting gear cantilevered above. The structure is built of rubble with raised window margins and long and short quoins, ashlar parapets, and small quatrefoil windows below plain eaves between the pavilions. The roof has been replaced with asbestos tiles.

The courtyard range dates to 1857 and was extended eastward around three sides of a courtyard approximately 20 bays long and 7 bays wide. The east side retains a slate roof, whilst the west side was re-roofed with asbestos tiles and the north end with asbestos sheets. The fabric is squared rubble with ashlar dressings and corniced eaves on a corbel table. Windows are architraved semi-circular arches with projecting keyblocks and string courses at impost level. The end bay of the west side, adjacent to the entrance, is raised with ashlar pilasters supporting an entablature with block pediment and hood moulded arched doorway. The centre bay of the north side is advanced with stepped paired anta pilasters supporting an entablature and pediment with acroterion at the apex and ends, framing an elliptically arched doorway with channelled jambs.

The main building, added in 1866 at the south end of the courtyard, is a 4-storey mill 8 bays wide and 10 bays deep, set beneath four parallel piended roofs. The north face comprises coursed rubble with ashlar dressings and a rustic-faced ground floor below a cornice, ashlar band and string course. The 2nd and 7th bays are advanced and flanked by channelled piers at ground floor level beneath giant Ionic pilasters rising through two floors. These support an entablature with main cornice breaking forward over the pilasters and supporting sculptured figures in front of antae supporting cornice and pediment. Windows are architraved at all levels: ground and 2nd floors have arched windows with projecting keyblocks, 1st floor windows are square-headed with console-supported segmental pediments, and 3rd floor windows are oval surmounted by swags. The remainder of the facade has angle ashlar piers, panelled above the main cornice with pedestals above a secondary cornice and coping. Arched windows have raised margins and, at 2nd floor, projecting keyblocks; 3rd floor windows have segmental arches. Windows are fixed with 6 panes in the upper floors and 8 panes at ground floor. The west and south faces are rendered with segmental-headed windows except at 1st and 2nd floor levels of the south elevation, which have semi-circular headed openings. The east side of the courtyard is returned for 1 bay and 2 storeys only, rusticated with a central architraved door with attached shafts below a cornice at 1st floor level. Above this rise 4 Roman Doric pilasters and an entablature with stepped blocking course framing 3 architraved arched windows with projecting keyblocks, impost moulds and blind balustraded aprons.

The building was extended eastward in 1890 by 2 bays in brick with parallel piended slate roof, the north end being flat roofed with balustraded parapet. This extension includes a slender clocktower with roundels below a broad cornice and a 4-faced clock with an iron crown.

Within the courtyard stands a circa 1860 office building, a single storey Greco-Egyptian structure with a flat roof and dome over the central hall. The five-bay front has end bays advanced with solid incised parapets and end antefixae above the cornice, linked by a pierced iron balustrade. The central bay contains a door and windows with battered Egyptian jambs. The base is battered rustic sandstone, with coursed rubble above and ashlar dressings to raised window, door and angle margins. The side elevations are plainer, each with a central canted 4-light bay window with cast iron balustrades above the cornice. Within the courtyard stands a near spherical urn on a pedestal within a circular stone basin.