| Details |
Farmhouse and remains of farmstead, depicted on the OS 1st and 2nd edition maps as an E-plan steading with open courts to the southeast. A small building and enclosure is attached to the northern end of the main range, which is orientated northeast/southwest. The southern range projects further west than the other ranges. A mill pond lies to the north and the farmhouse to the east. On present maps the main range has been extended west to take in the area of the small enclosure and building. The northern range is disused. Another disused range lies within the southern court. The remains of an unusual underground water wheel survives, and was surveyed in detail by RCAHMS in 2007. The subterranean wheel-pit measures is of rubble construction with a capped roof of longitudinally placed granite slabs. An access ledge 0.5 m wide runs along the length of the pit, presumably for access for repairs; modern access is via a trap door. It appears to date from the rebuilding of the site in the 19th century, when the buildings were realigned and the millpond constructed. The tail race is narrower than the wheel. The overshot wheel measures 4.3 m in diameter, and 1.2 m wide, and has two cast iron rings. Originally it had six cast-iron arms, 36 wooden bucket-floats, a wooden sole plate, a square axle and rim gear teeth. Little survives of the system operated from the adjacent steading building which controlled the flow of water to the wheel, and which consisted originally of a wooden lever protruding through an aperture in the northeast wall of the former byre. The rim gear teeth would have likely been connected to a pulley wheel system on a single shaft within the adjacent building, and which could have operated threshing machinery within the steading. There is also evidence in the wheel pit wall suggesting an arrangement of another spur wheel or wheels which could have operated machining in the steading building above and adjacent to the pit. The mill pond was much silted up at the time of the survey, and the sluice nearest the underground water wheel could not be identified but (from map evidence) was probably located at NJ 95388 26460. The water was carried underground for 24 m to the pit. Described in the Aberdeenshire OS Name Books, 1865-1871, volume 55 (OS1/1/55/37) as follows: 'A farmsteading with gardens etc attached, the property of Robert Gordon Esquire, Ythsie, Tarves.'. A further record, in the Female servant tax rolls, volume 13 (1788-9, counties A-L) (E326/6/13/1) suggests an 18th Century date for the original farm (which is thought to have been rebuilt after 1852), with a Mr John Black of Wateridgemuir registering one female servant, Helen Sim. The farm was originally part of the Esslemont Estate.
|
Historic Environment Records (HER)