NORTH AYRSHIRE WATERMILL SURVEY

Name of mill: Stevenston. Was locally known as “Stinston” mill.

Date visited: 1st visit 11.2.79 2nd visit 7.7 10 3rd visit 9.2.11

Address: Stevenston. Surveyed by: Alastair Weir

Grid ref: NS267421

Present use: No trace of mill remains Site now housing, circa 1960s. From local history sources and the existence of mill stones it operated as a meal mill of some form.

Machinery: Four of the stones from the mill have been incorporated into a soft landscape area close to where the building stood. This work was carried out in the 1980s. The stones are approximately 1.2m in diameter, 100mm thick. The stones are made up of segments and were originally held together by a metal band. Today modern metal bands indicate how the stone segments were held together. One stone shows unusual sockets. For weights or the rind?

Water source: The 1st edition OS indicates the location of the mill and its long lade fed from a dam. A sluice is also shown on the map. The dam was breached in the 1980s by a contractor working for the then Cunninghame District Council. This was required due to, when the Stevenston burn was in spate, water flooding onto an adjacent field. The owner complained on several occasions blaming the problem on the silted up state of the area behind the dam. The work took longer than anticipated due to the robust construction of the dam.

The dam was constructed with dressed stone blocks and as seen on visit had a skin of concrete over the top and down side. From memory the spillway was in the centre of the dam. The remains of the control sluice on the dam are still visible. The lade or race as known locally, ran a distance of some “400 to 450 yards” before entering the mill. In the 1924 when the town centre by-pass, Glencairn Street, was constructed a culvert/pipe, 900mm in diameter was provided to carry the lade through to the mill. A footpath now runs from ‘the High Road’ (Glencairn Street), along the approximate line of the lade. Faint traces can be discerned ‘above’ the High Road, coming from the direction of the dam.

“The water entering the lade was controlled by a mechanical operated sluice. Mr Grozet, the last miller, carried the lever morning and evening, to open and shut off the water from the dam.” Local sources also indicate that Ashgrove Loch, (see entry for this), was used indeed for Stevenston mill. “There was a wooden slide valve, which allowed water into a stream which flowed through Lochcraigs farm lands and into the Stevenston burn. The lade was also fed, directly, by a stream…which entered the lade in the form of a waterfall. Now piped directly into the (Stevenston) burn.” The OS name for this burn was seemingly the Skitreig burn but known then by the towns folk as the “Skittery burn.”

Photographs taken: Yes of the mill stones, dam, sluice and part of the lade.

Notes: The mill was said to have operated until the early 1930s. Thought to have been in existence since the 1770s.

Local history sources to be investigated.