page_title: Coldstream Mill
section_title: The mill
hierarchical_section_title: Coldstream Mill / History / The mill
caption_attribution_description: English: Coldstream Mill, Beith, North Ayrshire. The water source and marker. When the millpond water reached this footbridge enough water for a day's milling was in the mill pond.
context_page_description: Coldstream Mill, near Beith in North Ayrshire, Scotland was an early 19th century meal mill powered by the Dusk Water and Whitestone Burn that was enlarged from an existing much earlier watermill. The mill worked until 1991 and was the last traditional working water mill in Ayrshire and one of the last continuously worked watermills in Scotland. The mill buildings have been converted into a private dwelling and the mill pond has been retained.
context_section_description: Coldstream was not mentioned in legal papers until 1728, but it may have been enlarged and improved circa 1673, as part of the general improvements in the barony carried out by Francis Montgomerie of Giffin for his son John's marriage, extending nearby Hessilhead Castle to become what was for a long time reckoned to be the best house in the district. John Montgomerie married Lady Margaret Carmichael, daughter of the Earl of Hyndford. John became Governor of New York however he accumulated a number of debts and he was forced to sell the barony in 1722.
  In 1820 George Robertson comments on the excellent lands of Cauldstream (sic) which lay in the Barony of Hessilhead. Most rural mills at the time only had only a single set of millstones however the space between the stones in these mills was adjustable to cater for shelling or mealing.
caption: The marker stones on the millpond lade.
exif: {"Image Tag 0x000B": "Windows Photo Editor 10.0.10011.16384", "Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "SONY", "Image Model": "DSC-WX350", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "350", "Image YResolution": "350", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Windows Photo Editor 10.0.10011.16384", "Image DateTime": "2020:05:08 15:47:31", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "2402", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 51, 48, 48, 0, 0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0]", "Image Padding": "[]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "96", "Thumbnail YResolution": "96", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "35960", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "15618", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/60", "EXIF FNumber": "7/2", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "1600", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Recommended Exposure Index", "EXIF RecommendedExposureIndex": "1600", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2020:05:08 13:50:28", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2020:05:08 13:50:28", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "2", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "1687/1280", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "463/128", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "43/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4896", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2752", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "35776", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[43/10, 86, 7/2, 13/2]", "EXIF Padding": "[]", "EXIF OffsetSchema": "4200"}