Threshing Mill, Craigencalt Farm

Craigencalt is a substantial complex of agricultural buildings with a former threshing mill dating to the late 18th or early 19th century. Later in the 19th century, the site developed into a substantial farm. The core of the complex has developed around a courtyard open to the north and south. The threshing mill and barn forms the western side of the complex with a low rectangular-plan range to the north forming an L-plan range. There is a three-storey farmhouse with attached former dairy and home barn on the eastern side of the courtyard and an auxiliary building is located to the north. To the south of the main complex, and down a steep slope toward Kinghorn Loch, is a small building known as the Hermitage which is believed to be an earlier corn mill. To the southeast of the Hermitage, there is a long single-storey building formerly used as a byre situated close to the lochside.

The late 18th or early 19th century threshing mill and barn is a long rectangular-plan, pantiled building built into a slope which falls steeply to the south. To address the sloping site and to accommodate the wheel, the mill is two storeys in height with a raised basement at its southern extent, which reduces to a low one-storey range at the north. There is a rectangular range which abuts at a right angle to form an L-plan range. This range was added to first, forming a U-plan, which was later infilled to create a large rectangular-plan block. The mill range is mostly built of whinstone rubble with contrasting ashlar quoins with areas of ashlar and brick infill. The openings are rectangular and have ashlar surrounds. The wheel and mill machinery do not survive but the mill race is intact.

Additional ranges were added sometime after 1855 to the re-entrant angle of the L-plan range forming a rectangular-plan block, with a further range to the north. The courtyard elevation consists of the gables of the five ranges. All roofs are pantiled and all but the most northerly are piended. The ranges are rubble built with areas of brick infill, the openings are mostly altered with sliding, boarded-timber doors. The southernmost range is particularly wide. It has three brick segmental arched windows in its southern elevation and internally it has a three arch brick open arcade where it abuts the mill building. The third range retains cast iron supports for the roof and brick and concrete feeding troughs. The most northerly range has two altered openings in its north wall under a raised catslide roof. It is gabled with the courtyard gable set back from the other ranges with a door in an altered opening.

On the east side on the courtyard is the farmhouse, former dairy building and home barn which make a rough L-plan complex of conjoined buildings. The farmhouse dates to 1891 but may contain fabric from earlier buildings that are mapped on this site in 1855. The courtyard elevation raises three storeys in height and has gablet dormers and is built of a random rubble. The primary east elevation has three bays with a single projecting bay with two-storey canted bay windows. It is two storeys in height over an exposed basement and is built in snecked rubble. The gables have flat skews with triangular headed skewputts. The roof is slated and most of the windows are replacements.

Attached to the north of the farmhouse is a single-storey former dairy building, and to the south is building known as the home barn. Both are constructed in random rubble and have slated roofs.

The building known as the Hermitage is a small two-storey, two-bay, rectangular-plan structure on ground sloping to the south toward Kinghorn Loch. It is built of rubble masonry with a corrugated iron roof and with a segmental-headed arched cart opening to left of the south elevation. Externally, the east gable wall has a section of rectangular ashlar infill from ground level to around first floor height and may indicate repair associated with its potential former use as a mill. There is a long single storey, rubble range adjacent to the loch with corrugated-iron roof and variety of openings, which is believed to have been originally a byre.

There has been a mill at Craigencalt since at least the late 16th century when in 1584 an instrument of sasine transferred the land of Craigincat, Damheid and the mill, mill-lands and acres of Craigincat, from John Boswell of Balto to his son, James. The location of this mill in not known, but a mill in the general location of the present Craigencalt on the north shore of Kinghorn Loch is depicted on a manuscript map of 1642 by James Gordon. A mill at Craigencalt is again documented in 1682 when it is mentioned in a survey by Robert Bratson of Kilrie, tacksman to Lady Margaret Leslie, Countess Dowager of Wemyss. The survey outlines the condition of the mill and other buildings within the barony of Craigencalt. The mill referred to may be the building now known as The Hermitage. Craigencalt mill continues to appear on maps throughout the 18th and 19th centuries.

In 1707 the lands of Raith, which included the mill, were sold to Robert Ferguson. In 1757 he commissioned a set of estate maps and the one for Craigencalt shows the buildings associated with the mill at the loch side. Sometime between 1790 and 1810 a threshing mill was built at Craigencalt, perhaps commissioned by William Young, owner of the Grange Distillery in Burntisland. Young later held the tenancy of Craigencalt and records show that he was the owner of the threshing mill machinery. His investment in the site was probably to ensure a supply of suitable grain for his distillery business. The existing lade at Craigencalt was diverted to come alongside the new threshing mill building, still seen at the present farm steading. A new mill pond brought water down to a large water wheel. The old corn mill then became a cot house for farm workers.

Craigencalt and several other farms were bought by the Philp Educational Trust in 1829. Robert Philp was a local businessman who when he died in 1828 willed that that his assets be put into a Trust, and the capital and income used to provide for the educational needs of poor children. The minutes of the Philp Trust are detailed and give an insight into the running of the farms, including Craigencalt Mill. They indicate that, as well as milling, Craigencalt was a mixed farm at this time, but it didn't have a farmhouse as the tenant farmer lived elsewhere although there was accommodation for farm workers.

The mill remained in production until the Young family gave up the tenancy in 1863, after which the main activity at Craigencalt was mixed farming under a variety of tenants. In 1890 the farm was tenanted by John Craig of Argyll and it was at this time that the farmhouse was built. It was designed and perhaps built by the local firm of William Little and Son, Kirkcaldy, described as architects, builders, joiners, lathsplitters, sawmillers and so on. In the 1891 census the address was given as Woodfield, Craiges Cult Farm and John Craig was living there with his wife Margaret and five adult children, all working at the farm. In 1893 John Craig built a road to his house from the public road, and an entrance to his house from the farm steading. Craigencalt continued as a farm until 1989, after which it was developed as an environmental ecology centre.

The complex at Craigencalt is mapped in detail on the 1st Edition Ordnance Survey map of 1855, where it is labelled Craigencat Mill. Although there were subsequent developments in the later 19th century the general plan form was established by this time. The map shows the buildings arranged around a courtyard in a U-shaped form with the threshing mill part of an L-shaped range forming the west and northwest side. To the northeast there are two parallel ranges, with another range forming the east side. This grouping resembles the present range in this location, suggesting that the farmhouse, dairy and home barn developed from this grouping of buildings. The building known as The Hermitage and the long range along the shore of the loch are also depicted. The Ordnance Survey Name Book for Fife and Kinross (1853-55) describes Craigencalt as a large farmstead situated on the north side of Kinghorn Loch, where the farm servants and Steward of the proprietor Robert Young, Colinswell, reside, there was formerly a Corn Mill here, from which it has derived its name.

The 2nd Edition Ordnance Survey map of 1894 shows that the angle of the west range has been filled in with the latter ranges and the east range has coalesced into the form to be seen today with the farmhouse at its core. The map also shows the Hermitage as being unroofed at this time.