Description

The monument consists of a group of mills and associated remains between Dutch Loch and the sea.

The remains of a system of small corn mills are located along the Mill Burn which flows from the SE corner of Dutch Loch. The drystone-built dam which served to raise the loch level to store water survives, although slightly tumbled. It is about 20m long and has the setting for a sluice in its centre.

A short distance below the dam are the foundations of a small rectangular building, almost certainly a horizontal or "click" mill. Two much better-preserved mills, lacking only their roofs, are located along a carefully-built lade, which served to raise the water sufficiently above the valley floor to allow it to be directed onto the side-shot horizontal paddle of each mill in succession: the paddle hub survives in one mill, as do broken millstones.

Where the upper mill was fed by the lade, wooden channel lining survives. The lower mill is in slightly less sound condition, having become unroofed at an earlier date. Both of the well-preserved mills have been patched with concrete and cement late in their lives. Access to the mills for narrow carts is given by a stretch of well-made road, a "meal" road built during the 19th century, and this crosses the stream by a culvert of large lintel stones.

The area to be scheduled is irregular on plan, stretching from the loch to the high-tide mark, and includes the mills, the lades which fed them, the mill dam and sluice and the short stretch of "meal" road which crosses the stream (the rest of this road is the subject of a separate, contiguous, scheduling), together with an area around these remains in which evidence associated with their construction, reconstruction and use may survive.

The area to be scheduled has maximum dimensions of 150m NNW-SSE by 35m and is shown in red on the accompanying map extract.

Source: Historic Environment Scotland

Statement of Scheduling

The monument is of national importance as a fine example of a multiple 'click' mill system, showing the various elements and typical form to advantage. It provides evidence for the organisation of domestic food processing by a technology which survived almost unchanged from the Norse settlement of Shetland into the present century.

Source: Historic Environment Scotland

Sources

Bibliography
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Source: Historic Environment Scotland