THE MILL, ISLE OF EIGG

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 THE MILL 2009

The current mill building is said to have started its life as a change house, presumed to have been connected with St Donnans church, the ruins of which lie up the hill behind the mill. There is no record of when the change house was originally built and there may have been other structures on the site previous to this. Records do show that it was converted to a water driven corn mill in 1745. The original building was made of stone in the typical style and would have been thatched with locally growing plants such as heather, bracken, reeds, etc. It is thought that the original water wheel was a wooden structure. During the time when it functioned as a mill, a drying kiln was added to one side of the building. There are only a few signs of this today, as it was removed in 1964.

 THE MILL 1975

Records then show that in 1870 the mill was modernised, which involved the casting on the mainland of the current overshot wheel with annular ring drive and tension spokes and also the instalation of new machinery inside the building. The roof was also redesigned at this time, with a corrugated iron roof replacing the thatch. The mill is a "one-pair" mill, which means that it has one pair of stones. Tradition mills of the time were usually larger than this, having two or more pairs of stones and often more than one wheel. This mill's small size derives from its limited use on such a small island as Eigg.

THE MILL 1999