Keathbank Mill, Rattray, Blairgowrie

Keathbank Mill is a substantial jute spinning mill complex located in Rattray, Blairgowrie, dating back to the 1820s and 1830s with significant additions constructed between 1864 and 1865. The site was later converted into a museum and visitor centre. The main mill building is two storeys with a raised basement and attic, arranged over eight bays. It is built of rubble with ashlar dressings.

The east-facing (entrance) elevation features seven regularly spaced windows on the ground floor, covered by a full-width lean-to slate roof over the raised basement. A later link extends from the right bay. Timber doors are located close to the outer angles of the first floor, the left one incorporating an ironwork fire escape ladder, and a later heraldic device is centrally positioned. A full-width rooflight sits above. The west-facing (river Erricht) elevation has eight windows on each floor, with a timber door at the basement's outer right. The north and south elevations are gabled, each featuring a small window high in the gablehead; the southern gable is above a lower wheelhouse, while the northern gable has a single first-floor opening over the earlier mill. Multi-pane glazing is used in timber sash and case windows, and the roof is covered in grey slates with ashlar-coped skews.

An earlier mill building, dating from 1820-1830, is a single-storey and raised basement structure, four bays in length with gabled ends facing east and west. This original mill adjoins the main building on the north side and was converted in 1865 to house a steam engine, with an additional brick-built storey added around 1960.

A single-storey, rectangular-plan boiler house with ball-finialled gables and a tapering, octagonal red brick chimney stalk (reduced to 105 feet in height) stands nearby. A three-bay, gabled rubble wheelhouse is located at a lower level to the south.

Associated ancillary buildings include timber and corrugated-iron clad links to a two-by-four bay warehouse to the north, featuring a first-floor loading door on the east side. Isolated, slate-roofed ancillary buildings are also present to the east. Concrete lades and sluices are associated with the mill.

The interior features timber floors and a roof supported by cast-iron columns, with cast-iron roof trusses in the single-storey north outshot. Notable machinery includes a single-cylinder horizontal steam engine from 1862-5, by J & C Carmichael (Dundee), with a 22-inch cylinder, 4-foot stroke, and 17-foot flywheel, later fitted with drop valves. A waterwheel installed in 1865 by J Kerr (Dundee) measures 14 feet wide and 18 feet in diameter, with four sets of cast-iron spokes. A Ruston & Hornsby Diesel Engine from 1937 is also present, along with associated gearing, some line shafting, diesel engines, and a generator, all of which are of particular interest.