Knockando Woolmill

The overall site comprises several buildings, all dating to the nineteenth or early twentieth centuries. The mill itself was originally a single-storey rectangular building, but the addition of a two-storey carding and spinning mill led to its current L-plan design. Both parts of the building are rubble-built with corrugated iron roofs, and there is a large weatherboarded lean-to extension, also with a corrugated iron roof, added in the late nineteenth century to house equipment. There are two dwellings on the site. The mill house, where the miller's family would have lived, was built around 1910. Rubble-built, with two storeys, it features an elegant staircase with cast iron balusters, indicative of the relative wealth of the owner. There is also a cottage, the oldest remaining building on the site, dating from the early nineteenth century. Harled, with a corrugated iron roof, it has an adjoining square-plan dairy and, diagonally opposite, a winter drying shed. There is a shop, built for that purpose in the late nineteenth century and still used as such. It is a single-storey square-plan rubble-built structure, to the south-east of the main mill. The building currently used as a visitor centre was originally a byre. Built in the late nineteenth-century, it is a simple, rectangular building, with plain weatherboarding and a corrugated iron roof. An early twentieth-century sawmill is attached at the west gable, and a modern extension is attached to the north wall. ==History==

Wool production has taken place at the Knockando site since at least the eighteenth century. William Roy's map of Scotland, dated 1749, depicts buildings at the site, and records from 1784 make reference to a waulk mill, operated by the Grant family at Knockando. The Grants and their mill are mentioned again in the 1851 census, continued to operate it in the traditional manner for thirty years. In 1995 the mill, including the machinery, water power system and various outhouses, was designated a Category A listed building, but by 2000 the buildings and machinery were in a poor state of repair, so a charity, the Knockando Woolmill Trust, was established to renovate and maintain them. By 2009, the trust had raised £3.3 million for renovations, including a grant of £1.3 million from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, and the ownership of the mill was transferred to the trust. In 2016, Knockando Woolen Mill won the Europa Nostra EU Prize for Cultural Heritage, in the Conservation category, and in 2017 it was awarded funding by Highlands and Islands Enterprise to allow it to expand its production and workforce. ==Tartan==

The Knockando Woolmill produces a unique tartan. Designed in 2010 by John B Gillespie to commemorate the renovation of the mill, the Knockando Woolmill Tartan is primarily composed of red, blue and green, intended to represent the rust from the iron roof of the mill, water from the burn, and grass from the surrounding fields. The tartan is registered with the Scottish Register of Tartans, and may only be manufactured at the Knockando Woolmill. ==Current usage==

The mill continues to make fabrics on its historic machinery. It is open to visitors each year from 18 April to 26 September. == References ==