Site Report

WoSASPIN 40798 NT03NW 102 0392 3807

(Location cited as NT 039 381). Biggar Mill, late 18th century. A two-storey rubble building on an L plan, set into a hillside, with access to the granary at first-floor level. The wheel has been removed.
J R Hume 1976.
NMRS Report date for above text 24/03/2003

Nineteenth century corn mill with well-preserved interior machinery; also adjoining kiln to west and threshing barn to north; (ie essentially 3 ranges, in T-plan); detached miller's house nearby, to east. All built of rubble, contrasting yellow ashlar (mostly dorved) dressings, slate roofs.

MAIN MILL BUILDING 3 storeys, piend-roofed, symmetrical centre-doored 3-bay east front elevation, mill wheel on long west wall (lade approaches from north) in open area covered by loft which links kiln range to west and whose roof is integrated with main roof. Main building appparently free-standing when built (probably in first quarter of centruy), and only 2 storeys high; centre 1st floor loft doorway appears to have originally been a window like the others on that elevation (all now with 4-pane glazing). Mill wheel has lost its spokes and buckets, but shaft survives; inside, 2 pairs will stones (upper stone removed from each); on 1st floor, grain bruiser; complex gearing at ground floor; also series power shafts, sack hoists, etc.

KILN range on 2 levels, outshot on south flank (possibly fire box cover), entrance alongside to kiln furnace. Loft main enterance in west gable at level of roadway (exploiting slope of site); blocked openings; timber flooring overlays kiln mouth.

THRESHING BARN added between 1859-1897 (OS maps). 2 storeys, 3 bays, front wall on same wall-pane as original block, droved quoins of latter serve as left-hand door jam, quoins above (to eaves level of lower range only)) removed to integrate walling, corresponding door to right less tightly-placed at angle - otherwise elevation is symmetrical; centre window at ground, boarded loft opening above, the latter flanked by single slit ventilators whose ashlars appear to be re-used from a much ealier building; brick patching at eaves.

MILLER'S HOUSE (to east of mill) a south-facing single storey centre-doored 3-bay cottage, also built between 1859-1897 (OS maps). Altered - eg doubling of original windows to bipartite (though at a compartatively early date, re-using original dressings), pair large rooflights, single-bay extension on west gable. Plate glass sash windows; end stacks.

Modern brick outbuilding. Millhouse said to have ended in 1930's.
Derived from HS Listed Building Data

The mill buildings are generally as described above, and have been converted to domestic use, although the southern wall of the western wing retains buttressing stumps of ruinous walls of now-demolished parts of the building complex and appears woutwardly to be somewhat delapidated. Modern blockings of openings are clearly visible on the S side walls. The mill is described on the 1st Ed. O.S. map as a corn mill. The mill's head race is visible as a pronounced earthwork, and reaches the mill at a high level on the north side of the western wing, which is set into the western slope of the valley of the Biggar Burn. The tail race is shown on the 1st Ed. O.S. map as running along the base of the slope to the E side of buildings on the eastern side of the Biggar Mill Road, crossing under the road at 303941 638013 and following the W edge of the road to re-join the Biggar Burn just downstream of the ford (see WoSASPIN 40739) 120m south of the mill. All the visible remains conform to a late 18th or 19th century date, but the date of earliest use of the site is unknown. Roy's Military Survey (1747-55) does not appear to show a mill at this location; a "Mill" is shown to the west of the Biggar Burn, but it appears to relate to the small built-up area on the west side of the burn opposite the motte and burgh downstream of the 18th C site.
Entered WoSAS (HMcB) 27/01/2009