by Marion Ruscoe
When I first started looking at the site of the Saltwater Mill at Petty Bay, I was writing a general survey of industry in Petty Parish (2019). I discovered that there was very little primary evidence for the mill and access to the site was not easy. In fact, at the time, I couldn’t see how to get down to the site, since the Castle Stuart Golf Course had taken over the area to the north of the Church and fenced the course in. It was only when Scape visited in 2022 that I finally managed to see for myself exactly where the mill had been situated. At that time information about the mill was limited and much came from secondary sources. As a result there wasn’t a clear picture of what it had been like. Sources highlighted the double waterwheel and the fact that it operated on both incoming and outgoing tide. There was also the suggestion that it may have been built Cromwell’s time. But nothing of the mill building has survived, and only the remains of the bulwark which enclosed the mill dam at the eastern end of Petty Bay indicates that this feature, known as one of the wonders of the parish, ever existed. However, during the last year a number of sources have been uncovered and these have added to our sum of knowledge and fleshed out the picture of the mill and the surrounding area.
There’s no evidence to support the idea that it was built as early as Cromwell’s time, but the evidence does suggest that it did have a double wheel and that it operated on both outgoing and incoming tide.
In the Moray Estate archives there’s a building contract dated 1673, which fixes the date of construction –
ane salt water milln at the [Kenōger] of Castle Stewart within the sea marke of the lenth breadth and hight and other conditions as folloves videlicet the said milln to consist in breadth of threttie sex foott in measur within walls sexteine foott of breadth and tenn foott hight from the floor of the said millne when the samen is in la[v]ell. The lavell [
Transcript by C.McLarenthat be] is nixt the water to be of asler werke without tuo foott above the vater wheel and also the wheel postes within and without bothe sydes to be of the same as it reguards others postes and to be mented with flages under the inner and utter wheels, according as it shall be neidfull. As also shall three hewen doors wherof on is to be in the north gavell with ane sufficient stair leading therto with fyve windows and more if it be required and also the said Robert is heirby obliged to big the water wheel gaits of the said mill dame with asler werke untill the samen be suffiecent done and the cluse of the said milln is to be biged in the same forme with asler stone.
This contract gives some very useful detail. The internal size is specified at 36’ (10.97m), by 16’ (4.87m), by 10’ (3m) high. The mention of the ‘inner and utter wheels’ confirms that there were two waterwheels placed in parallel, and there were three doors, one in the north gable with a stair leading to it, and at least five windows. There’s also mention of ‘water wheel gaits’ and a sluice (‘cluse’). But this contract with Robert Niklesone, the mason at Cawdor, says nothing of the roof, or the machinery which would be needed, so it’s probably only one of several contracts with local craftsmen which have since been lost.
We can only surmise as to what the building looked like. The estate map of 1808 shows it as a rectangular building at the northern end of the bulwark, but 10’ in height doesn’t seem to be high enough to accommodate the machinery necessary, so it may be that a wooden superstructure was added. What we may have here is a contract for the base of the building in stone, probably because it was sitting at or near the high tide line. The requirement for ‘aslar [ashlar] stone’ suggests that it was good quality and looked a very fine building. The roof would have been thatched, but may have been slated in the C18.
A mill dam was constructed by building a dyke or bulwark across the eastern end of the bay and this feature is mentioned in Tours in Scotland, 1677 and 1688 by Thomas Kirk and Ralph Thoresby:
We crossed a bank by a mill, near Stewart Castle, a quarter of a mile over, in the middle whereof were a pair of flood-gates, whereby the dam was filled with the tide, and supplied the mill at low water.
This ‘bank’ is all that remains on the ground and Tom Watson’s aerial shot of the area (below), taken in 2022 when Scape visited the site, shows the remains with what looks like a stone-lined pit for the water-gates over the mouth of the Rough Burn.
One of the main features of the mill, which must have contributed to its reputation as one of the wonders of the parish, is the fact that, according to the NSA, it used both the outgoing and incoming tides to turn the waterwheels:
The object of the dike was not merely to dam up the waters of this burn, but, first to exclude and then to admit the flow-tide at sluices so constructed as that the mill might be turned both by the flow and the ebb-tide.
and this is supported by the comment in The Survey of the Province of Moray, 1798 –
There are 4 corn mills in the parish, one is turned by the flux and reflux of the tide.
There’s no information as to whether the water wheels were undershot or breast shot, though it’s more likely that they were the former. So, although modern tide mills generally operate only on the ebb tide, by filling the dam on the incoming tide through water gates and sluices, to provide a head of water for the wheels, what we have at Petty is a more complicated system, though it’s not entirely clear how the mechanism worked.
John Grant’s entry in the NSA provides a possible date for the demise of the mill as around 1824. However, there’s a comprisement in the NRS dated 1821 which suggests that the mill was ceasing operation:
Alexander Fraser wright and Alexander McBean Miller both in Petty was called by mutual consent of Mr Archd. Taylor in Petty and Alexr McGillivray Miler in Salt Mills hath comprised the maciniery of the Mill Rooff Doors and Gates of the intake which we have done to the Best of our Skill and Judgement and finds the same amounting to the Sums of Fifty Seven Pounds eighteen Shillings Sterling (Signed) Alex Fraser wright Alexr McBean Likewise the Iron work of the same Mill was comprised at the same time By John Clunas Smith Petty and the above Alexr McBean and finds the same amounting to Three Pounds eight Shillings and ten pence Sterling to the Best of our Skill and Judgement.
Transcript by M. Ruscoe
A comprisement is a valuation taken at the end of a lease but whether the date when milling ceased was 1821 or 1824, it seems likely that it stopped some time in the 1820s.
Shaw, in a lecture given to the SSIA conference on Food Production and Preservation, 1981, outlines the various processes which were based at grain mills. Initially only milling and shelling were mechanized, but during the C18, the other processes – threshing, winnowing, drying and sifting – were gradually mechanized and often taken over by the mill. In addition, during the C18 wood gave way to iron in the machinery. However, there’s no direct evidence as to which of these processes applied to the Saltwater Mill.
The comprisement of 1754 itemises the machinery. This confirms that as well as double water wheels, there were two pairs of millstones.
Item To the utter wheels and ule Troos [bins to receive meal) | 5 12 |
Item To the Inner Wheel | 4 16 |
Item To the four Miln Stones | 16 |
Item To the Bolstors [heavy plates supporting bearings of wheel Shaft] | 30 6 |
Item To the Crubs [removable casing enclosing millstones] and Happers [hoppers] | 2 16 |
Item To the two bridges two Clos Two breast Trees and the two bands | 3 4 |
Item To the two Cradles | 1 4 |
Item To all the Iron work | 17 6 |
Total | £66 |
The few multures which are in the Moray Estate archives indicate that the mill was processing oats and meal and some of this was for animals. An account of William Hayes in 1677 includes ’33 bolls 1 firlet oats given to my lords horses’.
The earliest reference to millers working at the mill comes in the Kirk Session minutes for 1682 when ‘the officer was desired to charge Philip Forbes and Wm. English, millers of the Saltwater miln for setting and grinding of the Lord’s Day’. From then till 1738, a number of members of the Forbes family appear in church records as millers – Finlay Forbes (1710), Peter Forbes (1721) and Rory Forbes (1738). Patrick Forbes was at the mill between 1718 and 1743 and for part of that time was working alongside William Dallas (1708-1731). The comprisement of 1754 sees Alexander Dunbar and Donald Tolme as outgoing tenants. By this time in the C18, leases were generally for 19 years, so if the latter two tenants saw out a full term, their lease would have started in 1735. The only way to tidy up this information would be if we could find a record of rents paid, and it would be even better if we could find a lease! However, it’s clear that generally there were at least two millers working the mill, probably because of the extended hours required by use of both outgoing and incoming tide.
The final name associated with the mill is Alexander McGillivray who first appears in the record in 1771 and he is the miller mentioned in the comprisement in 1821. Since the earlier comprisement (1754) mentions both millers as ‘late Milners of the Saltwater Milns’ while the 1821 document identifies only Alexander McGillivray as ‘Miler in Salt Mills’ it could be that the mill was closing during the term of a lease and there was only one tenant at that time. There’s no mention of another miller working alongside Alexander McGillivray in any of the records so far discovered and the final time his name appears in relation to the mill is 1826.
So there are two final but linked questions to consider – why was there not a second miller working alongside Alexander McGillivray and why did the mill finally cease operating?
During the C18 things were changing. The system of thirlage, which had been established to ensure that local people within a specific area would use the services of a particular mill, was beginning to fall out of use. Where before the suckeners (tenants who were thirled to a particular mill) had a duty to pay for the use of the mill and help maintain it, this cost increasingly fell upon the miller. Finally thirlage was abolished by Act of Parliament (1799) and free market forces increasingly took over. Many of the older mills were falling out of use as newer mills with up-to-date machinery were being built. It’s easy to imagine that the Saltwater Mill at Petty, built over 100 years previously, was not up to the standard required for C19 agricultural and social practices. There’s no evidence of any maintenance on the mill, but generally the obligation to help maintain the mill e.g. rethatching the roof, maintaining the bulwark, replacing millstones, was much resented and avoided by the suckeners. Though some obligations regarding maintenance fell upon the estate, increasingly the cost fell upon the miller and it’s possible that by the time Alexander McGillivray was tenanting the mill, it was not generating enough income to support two millers. Equally, an old building might have needed too much maintenance to bring it up to modern standards and if local people started using other mills, it would have been impossible for the Saltwater Mill to survive. It’s interesting to note that of the four mills in the parish mentioned in the Old Statistical Account, only one survived by the time of the New Statistical Account (1834-45).
The estate map of 1808 indicates that as well as the mill building there were other structures to the north of the mill. One was very large and probably mentioned in the comprisement of 1754 as the ’above designed dwelling house’. Some of these buildings would have been barns and the land at the end of the hook which enclosed the eastern end of the bay is named Miller’s Croft and is labelled ‘good land’ under rig and furrow with an area of pasture around it. There’s evidence of a small community apart from the millers and their families attached to the mill. In 1721 and 1722 the Kirk Session minutes record the paying of poor money to ‘Anne Fraser att the Salt-Miln’. And after the mill ceased operating, a community still existed at the Saltwater Mill. H. MacDonald, Alexander MacDonald, James Macintosh and their families are all recorded ‘at the Saltwater Mills’ between 1828 and 1837. The 1841 census records 2 buildings occupied by Mary Fraser and Christian Clark, aged 60 and 70 respectively, and Margaret McPherson who appears to be sharing a building with John McDonald, a Kirk Officer, John McDonald, a Gaelic teacher, and Alexander McDonald. The 1851 census has no record of anyone living in the environs of the Saltwater Mill, but there is one building occupied at the time of the 1861 census and this is recorded on the first ed. 25” OS map. It was occupied by John Cameron, a labourer, and his family but by the time of the 1871 census we find John living in Ardersier with his wife and there is no further record for the Saltwater Mill.
After the mill ceased operating, it was abandoned and seems to have deteriorated quite quickly. The Inverness Field club visited the site in 1879 and noted traces of the mill. It was just a scatter of stones which were removed shortly after.
The site today looks abandoned, but the line of the bulwark is still there, highlighted by the remains of a fence which has been put up along its length. The area of the mill dam is very silted up, but still floods on the incoming tide. Where the mill was actually sited at the northern end of the bulwark, there are some stones which may be all that remains of the building.
NOSAS conducted a survey of all the extant features associated with the mill in March 2023 and the report has been written by Anne Coombs – download from the NOSAS website here. The site is recorded in the HER (MHG36425) and SCAPE (14458).
See also Marion’s earlier blog post on Petty Bay.