Dawsholm Printfield
Stuart Nisbet gives us his next portrait in the Lost Mills of the Kelvin series
Many mill sites supported two or more mills, all of which were powered by the same dam on the Kelvin. Dawsholm (or Dalsholm) had two entirely separate mill sites, both sharing the Dawsholm name, but each with their own dam and lade. In this issue we look at the lower site, which we will call Lower Dawsholm.
Double railway viaducts over the Kelvin, with dam in foreground
The story starts at the earliest bleachfield in Scotland, at Dalquhurn on the River Leven, near Dumbarton, established in 1715. In 1728 this bleachfield was purchased by William Stirling. In 1750 Stirling’s nephew, also William Stirling, started a printfield at Dawsholm on the Kelvin. The printfield works washed, bleached and printed linen and calico textiles, particularly handkerchiefs. The lade from the river was used to power machinery, including the wash mill. Water for processing may also have come from the Kelvin. However the river water was often too brown and silty for this. The water therefore had first to be settled in a reservoir. The water for processing might also have come from a local spring.
Dawsholm Printfield was advertised many times in the Glasgow press from the 1760s onwards. In 1770 William Stirling moved back to the River Leven, where he started another printworks at Cordale. As a result there was some interaction and engagement between management and workforce across the two sites, and this facilitated a movement of labour from one to another as the market changed. The Stirlings were succeeded by William Robb, a calico printer from Partick. In the early 1790s Dawsholm was acquired by Richard, son of William Gillespie of South
Woodside.
The ruined dam can be difficult to see nowadays
By the 1870s Dawsholm Printworks was redundant and the site was purchased by Glasgow Corporation in order to build a new gasworks. As part of this redevelopment, the general ground level of the site was raised appreciably, right to the riverbank. The higher level makes it quite difficult to envisage now how the site supported a water mill, as today it seems to be too high above the Kelvin.
Dawsholm Mill lade commenced at a dam nearby, 200 metres upstream from the double railway viaducts over the Kelvin (a brick and stone viaduct built side by side) which serve Maryhill station. The dam on the river is mostly ruined, and can be difficult to see, especially when the
Kelvin is in spate. When the river is low, a few courses of the dam are visible on the north bank, as well as the general slight fall in the river.
On the north bank of the river the remnant of the lade leads to one of the aches in the railway viaduct. Beyond the viaduct the ground level of the former gasworks now rises dramatically. The lade originally continued for a further 200 metres to the site of the printworks, stretching down to what is currently Skaethorn Road.
The use of the ‘Dawsholm’ name for this site and the next site upstream often makes it hard to differentiate the two mill sites in written sources. The next mill, Dawsholm Paper Mill, will be covered in the next issue.
The Lost Mills of The Kelvin is taken from the Spring 20010 edition of FORK News