This thread was originally written and published in February 2019.

Here’s a wonderful picture of the Chancelot Roller Flour Mill in glorious technicolour. This is taken from the old railway line alongside the Water of Leith that ran from St. Mark’s Park towards North Leith.

In case your wondering, Chancelot has nothing to do with Camelot, the name came from a now long-demolished Georgian villa – Chance Lott – probably from the Scots chance lotin, or lucky feu (plot). It was built in the 1790s by an accountant named John Robertson (his wife’s name can be seen as the landholder in the bottom of the grounds).

Just check out that clock tower and chimney! The chimney reached a height of 215 feet and tower stood at 185. These formed a north Edinburgh landmark; “one of the most conspicuous objects on the northern boundary of the city looking towards Leith.” The architect, Leith’s own James Simpson, was briefed to not only make the mill “stoutly built and efficient for [its] work” but also “to impart to the front elevation a distinctly ornamental architectural character.”

“The most handsome mill in the world” was opened on 25th August 1894. The Scottish Co-operative Wholesale Society had resolved to construct it in 1891 on account of them purchasing 180,000 bags of flour from millers on the private market per annum; at these volumes it made commercial sense to bring the milling in-house and cut out the middle man. The ground was feud from Col. Clerk-Rattray of Bonnington and a ceremonial foundation stone was laid on August 6th 1892.

Internally, the mill was the most modern in the land when it was commissioned, with Symon’s roller plant and could produce 25 sacks of flour per hour, with built-in capacity to take that up to 40 without adding any additional machinery. A 6 day working week, night-and-day would mill for 144 hours; 3,600 sacks per week or over 180,000 per year, making the SCWS entirely self-sufficient for flour milling. A mechanised grain conveyor system could unload 50 tons per hour from railway wagons and convey it directly to silos in the top of the 6-storey building, from where it could then descend by gravity throughout the milling floors. All packing and processing was mechanise, so “not a hand touches it from the moment the wheat passes into the mill until it is sent out sacked.” The warehouse floors could accommodate 50,000 sacks of flour, sufficient to store over a quarter of the total annual milling capacity.

Everything in the mill was driven by an endless rope system powered by the latest in triple-expansion steam engines built by D. Stewart & Co. Ltd. in Glasgow and which could develop 600 horsepower. These were fed steam by two boilers by Messrs Penman & Co., also of Glasgow, working at 160 pounds per square inch. Two electrical dynamos by Mavor & Coulson (yet again, of Glasgow) could produce 30 Amperes each, enough to light the entire mill with 500 internal and 8 external lamps. Mills could be dangerous places to work with respect to fire and explosions (see the thread on the unfortunately flammable and explosive Tod’s mill in Leith) and so the Chancelot was fitted with the latest precautions including cyclonic dust catchers, fire breaks and an automatic sprinkler system with 770 heads. The elaborate central tower also had a practical purpose; it contained 30,000 gallons of firefighting water which would be delivered under the pressure of gravity wherever it was needed in the plant.

The below diagram shows the general arrangement of the mill and its railways overlaid on the modern landcape. The mill (magenta) was served by sidings from both the Caledonian Railway (blue line) that and the North British Railway (olive line), so that grain could arrive from, and flour could be dispatched to, any corner of the country.

The mill was part of the SCWS (Scottish Co-operative Wholesale Society) empire, and exported flour and meal to Europe. Although the SCWS centre of gravity was in the West of the country, its milling operations were in Leith, as it was the country’s principal port for grain imports (see also the thread about the Leith Pigeon War) and an industrial milling industry had grown up there in the second half of the 19th century. The below advert from the 1950s highlights some of the products and export routes from the SCWS ‘ milling operations in Leith to the rest of Europe.

The SCWS had another mill nearby – the Junction Mills – which produced oatmeal, this mill wasn’t built for the Society so was a fairly plain affair. The bought it from Messrs William Inglis & Sons in 1897 when the latter relocated upstream a little way to Bonnington. During World War 2, both the Chancelot and Junction mills were worked 24 hours a day, 7 days a week without stop for years, jointly milling and filling 242 3lb. bags of flour per hour, day in, day out.

And on Links Place on the other side of Leith the SCWS had a large office groceries and provisions warehouse complex, completed in a not dissimilar Free Renaissance style to the Chancelot – this was no coincidence as the architect was once again James Simpson. (Simpson had also been the Leith Burgh Architect, and this particular style with its Parisian vibes pervades in a couple of other examples of his work including the Yardheads Public School and an extension to Leith Hospital.

As this building was completed in 1879 and when Leith was not part of Edinburgh, it bears the civic coats of arms of both of those towns but not Edinburgh! The building was doubled in width in 1925 in a very similar style by the architect William Mercer; most people are not aware there is over 50 years difference between each side. The original side, to the west at 12 Links Place, is now called Great Michael House, and the extension at number 14 is Links House.

SCWS sold their plain white flour under the Crystal Stream brand and its self-raising as Lofty Peak. The SCWS was the wholesale and manufacturing side of the Scottish Co-op movement; customers bought from their local Co-op Society (in Edinburgh this was the St. Cuthbert’s Association and in Leith this was Leith Provident.) and their Society in turn bought own-branded goods from the SCWS.

Sixty four men from the Chancelot went off to war during WW1; nine never came back and of the others we can assume that many more came back in body but perhaps not in mind or soul. From the Junction Mills, thirty two went away, 4 never returned and 5 were discharded from service as disabled.

Back to the Chancelot Mill and its history. Flour milling is a dusty and dangerous business and the mill was damaged in 1914-15 by a fire and again in 1962, but those far-sighted fire precautions put in by its original architect meant that it was not long out of commission. However by the 1960s it was clear to the SCWS that it was now antiquated and uncompetitive. In 1964 they applied to the Leith Dock Commission for 5 acres of land newly reclaimed by infilling of the Western Harbour. The capital required for an up-to-date modern mill was beyond the means of the Co-op alone and so Associated British Foods was brought in as a partner and they jointly financed and operated the new £2¼ million Chancelot Mill Ltd. which opened towards the end of 1968.

The new mill had only been in operation a little over a year when, before anybody had come up with what to do with the old mill, a disastrous fire on the night of February 3rd 1970 took hold. It destroyed the roof of the clock tower (which, ironically, in its operational days had held the enormous tank of fire-fighting water) and much of the top floors of the building. Sixty firemen from all over Edinburgh battled to fight the flames in winds of up to 60mph but it was largely in vain.

Over the next year, the burnt out shell was unceremoniously demolished and sold off for building materials. There are further sad photos of the remains here.

I will leave you in this thread as I greeted you, with another tantalisingly impressive photo of the Mill taken from (or, in this case, below) the Railway. This one is taken underneath the Caledonian Railway viaduct in the grounds of the Bonnington Skinnery, looking north where the Bonnyhaugh housing estate now is. Do follow the link and zoom in on it.

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