Hutton Castle Mill With Kiln And Bridge

Hutton Castle Mill With Kiln And Bridge

This is a substantial early 19th-century flour mill incorporating a mid 18th-century structure, built as a 2-storey rectangular-plan building with an attic, adjoined by a square-plan kiln of approximately 1½ storeys. The mill is constructed from random and coursed sandstone rubble with ashlar dressings featuring margins and projecting cills. The quoins are stugged ashlar long and short work. The north-west gable is finished with stugged, coursed red and pink ashlar sandstone to its base, with black and red stock brick infill above. The building is skew-gabled with plain skews, some now missing, and putts.

The south-east elevation is gabled and contains a ground-floor entrance with a diagonal cast-iron support beam running from the top right of the door to the adjoining kiln. At first-floor level is a large off-centre door positioned to the right, which incorporates the gable end of the earlier lower structure into its left-hand jamb.

The north-east elevation displays two regularly placed bays within the main storey at first-floor level on its sloped face, with a small window at ground-floor left. There is a blind gabled wallhead dormer to the upper right and paired Carron lights to the left of the roof.

The north-west elevation is gabled and contains an opening within the ashlar base housing a cast-iron water wheel boss and shaft. At first-floor level is a later central window with remains of original glazing, directly above which is an earlier window now blind.

The south-west elevation contains a small opening at the extreme left of the basement with a timber lintel, housing an external power driver shaft and wheel assembly for internal machinery. At ground-floor level are windows to left and right, with blind remains of an earlier window above the right-hand bay. At first-floor left is a rectangular window retaining remains of original timber glazing bars. Three cast-iron Carron lights are positioned to the centre of the roof with an additional rooflight below and to the left of centre.

The kiln adjoins at the south-west angle of the sloped south-east elevation. Its north-west elevation displays a piended blind elevation to the right with a rough opening at ground floor, and to the left adjoins the main mill with a pitched brick gablet rising above the main roofline. The south-west elevation contains a rough window opening to the centre of the main floor, with a semi-circular section cut out of the roof at its apex for the former flue or dryer stack. The south-east elevation has a window with ashlar cill and lintel to centre. The north-east elevation similarly has a window with ashlar cill and lintel to centre, with a semi-circular section cut out of the roof at apex for the former flue or dryer stack. Incorporated into the right of this elevation and the south-east elevation of the main mill is the gable end of the earlier structure with a door at 1½-storey level; the roof beams here are now missing.

The original glazing plan is lost, though partial timber frames remain in places. A pitched wallhead dormer with slated cheeks, now blind, is present, together with 2-pane cast-iron Carron lights to the attic. The main building has a pitched grey slate roof with lead ridging and flashings; some valleys have been replaced in aluminium. The kiln has a piended roof. Partial cast-iron rainwater goods survive.

The interior is partially harled with whitewashed walls. Exposed timber beams carry timber upper floors, and there is an open-tread timber stair. The original machinery remains substantially intact, including an undershot waterwheel boss and shaft, power transmission shafts, gearwheels, pinions, and associated levers and slides for three earlier millstone sets positioned at first-floor level, some now missing. Also in situ are wooden bins, hoppers, a wooden cockler drum, and various powered lifts, hoists and conveyors.

A single-arched bridge spanning the lade to the north-east completes the complex. It is constructed from rubble-coped sandstone and whinstone rubble with regular voussoirs to the round-arched openings.