Junction Mills

Been doing a little Historical sleuthing this morning.

This object has puzzled me ever since I came to live here in Leith, six or seven years ago now. It is very obviously a sluice gate, but what is not so obvious is its purpose, and it must have, at some point in time, had a purpose. The puzzling thing is that this is the only remaining piece of evidence of what must have been here in the past, there is absolutely nothing remaining that could give a possible clue as to why this sluice gate (marked with the X on the map below better viewed larger) is where it is.

A little digging around here brought to light the fact that there was once a flour mill on this bend of the Water of Leith. So, I can only assume that it had a water wheel which was lower than the actual mill  itself, and the that the power generated was somehow transmitted up into the mill itself.

Junction Mill is a flour mill and also an oatmeal mill. It belongs to the Scottish Co-operative Wholesale Society, who took it over from Messrs. John Inglis and Son in 1897. The capacity of the flour mill is about fifteen sacks per hour, and in 1920 its production Was 123,808 sacks. In the same year the oatmeal mill produced 28,504 sacks of oatmeal, all the oats used in the mill being Scottish. Swanfield Mill in Bonnington Road is a flour mill, while Messrs. Inglis have a large oatmeal mill at Bonnington. These mills, like the others already mentioned, possess the latest types of miffing machinery.

Source.

I also discovered an artist’s impression from the turn of the century, early 1900′s:-

March 10, 2012 | Categories: Edinburgh Day by Day | Tags: digital photographs, digital photography, Edinburgh, Leith, photographs, photography, Scotland, Water of Leith | Leave A Comment »