Edmonston Mill, Candy Mill

Edmonston Mill, Candy Mill

A distinctive former estate corn mill built circa 1800 in Gothic style, now converted to a dwelling. The building comprises a 3-storey section and a lower 2-storey eastern section, constructed into steeply sloping ground using random whinstone rubble with droved quoins and window margins. The building retains fine decorative stone detailing unusual for a rural industrial building of this type.

The 3-storey southern elevation features squared windows and a round-arched door at ground level, round-arched windows at first floor, and small oval windows under the eaves with modern corresponding rooflights. The lower eastern section has a small pointed-arched window at upper level and a round-arched central doorway with keystone and small roundel window above at ground level within the gable. The western gable contains a round-arched window at second floor and a 20th century lean-to infill with glazing over the former mill wheel housing. The plain northern elevation has a glazed door, single window, and small glazed former opening.

Windows are timber sash and case, with 12-pane lights at ground floor and 3-pane curved astragal upper sashes over 4-panes at first floor round-arched windows. The oval roundels feature 20th century stained glass panels. Doors are timber-boarded to the eastern gable with foliate detail roundels and iron strap brackets. The roof is graded grey slate. Mill stones and steps remain in the garden as landscape features.

The interior dates to the reconstruction circa 1975, with a radial timber stair and exposed column and beam detailing using reclaimed timber, doors and other materials.

The mill was originally built as a 2-storey and attic water-powered corn mill. Its construction on sloping ground allowed level access through a granary to the kiln floor and to the mill attic, from which dried grain could fall by gravity to the mill stones. The water wheel was sited at the western gable. The decorative window openings suggest the mill was conceived as much as a landscape feature as a functioning mill. It lay within the former grounds of Edmonston Castle (B-listed), built in 1815 by architect James Gillespie Graham (1777-1855) in castellated Gothic style with pointed-arched windows. The design quality suggests Gillespie Graham may have been responsible for the mill construction, which would account for its unusual decorative treatment.

The mill fell into dereliction and became roofless until circa 1970, when it was rebuilt using traditional and reclaimed materials. John Thomson's Atlas of Scotland of 1832 marks a mill at this location. The building was formerly known as Edmonston Mill, the name it has borne since construction, though the statutory address is Candy Mill. The mill forms an important element of a small picturesque rural hamlet where two streams converge.