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House, still in use, depicted on the OS 1st and 2nd edition maps. The 1st edition shows a rectangular house with garden on the south and west. By the time of the 2nd edition small additions had been made to the west and north of the house, and another building added on the west side of the garden. This has since been removed and further additions and alterations made to the house. In the 19th century it was owned by the engineer James Blyth, who, in the late 19th century, began a research programme at the Anderson's College in Glasgow (now the University of Strathclyde) into the use of wind power for electricity generation and storage. His experimentation with windmill construction began in about 1885 and in late July 1887 he constructed a 'small windmill for supplying electric light by means of storage cells' in the garden of Blyth House. This cloth-sailed, horizontal wind turbine is the world's first-known structure for the generation of electricity from wind power. It is described as being of tripod design, with a 33 foot windshaft, four arms of 13 feet with canvas sails, and a Burgin dynamo driven from the flywheel using a rope. A second, larger and much-improved version of his wind turbine was later built at the Montrose Lunatic Asylum, Infirmary and Dispensary (See Angus HER entry NO76SW0063), where it ran successfully for 27 years. Blyth died in 1906 in Glasgow but is buried in the Blyth family plot in the kirkyard at Marykirk (NO66NE0002).
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Historic Environment Records (HER)