Introduction to the mills

starting a revolution. Agnes Campbell began a tradition here 300 years ago

Just over three hundred years ago and long before the days of steam and rail, when roads were closer to dirt tracks than the metalled surfaces of today, one Agnes Campbell, also known as the 'Queen's Printer' (which was the title awarded to her husband, Andrew Anderson, whose widow she was), decided to lease land on the edge of the river Esk from Sir John Clerk. Her purpose was to build a papermaking mill.

If Agnes didn't forsee it herself, nevertheless it was she who established there at Valleyfield in 1709 Penicuik's long papermaking tradition and later international reputation.

And, whether through intuition or simple fortune, a number of factors contributed to her choice being an auspicious one.

• The river Esk had sufficient power to drive a millwheel
• St Mungo's Well, close to the churchyard, was an unfailing spring of pure water which could be collected to make the paper pulp,
• The land between spring and river were flat and perfectly suitable for later expansion of mill buildings,
• Edinburgh lay only fourteen miles to the north and from it came what must have seemed an inexhaustable supply of rags and recyclable material,
• finally, and perhaps most important of all, trades of many kinds flourished in the city at that time that required a printing industry. Publishers, bankers, lawyers and more all required fine-quality paper, while merchants used it for increasingly diverse needs...

And so it transpired, that once Agnes tapped into this chain of supply, demand grew, with the consequence that within a hundred years nine further mills had been established along the Esk between Penicuik and Dalkeith.

[above] the two Cowan mills of Valleyfield and Low Mill

Over the following three hundred years, Penicuik became increasingly known as 'The Papermaking Town'.

It is hard to imagine now that, when Agnes began her production in 1709, there was no direct road between Penicuik and Edinburgh. Need brought change, so that when a hundred fifty years later in 1855, the first railway line established a station at Pomathorn, another thread of communication increased papermaking demand accordingly, and soon further railway lines were established directly adjacent to the river Esk itself, making direct access possible to the growing industry of the paper mills. Rags from Edinburgh were in insufficient supply for much needed raw materials and esparto grass began coming in from Tunisia and areas around North Africa.

With the esparto grass came increased production, yet unfortunately so did the new chemical treatment demanded of it... Increased effluent from this was discharged into the River Esk, polluting not only the paper mills downstream but the river itself and its dependent wildlife. Although improvements to pollution ocurred, the river did not recover until the paper mills were all finally closed in 2004, with the termination of production at Dalmore — the last mill on the Esk.

See fuller detail on Valleyfield and the other mills, here. Alternatively you might like to follow the Historical Society's own history of the mills on their Penicuik Papermaking site.

[above] even within this short section of present day Penicuik, the vast scale of the papermaking industry is hard to imagine
[below] of these four mills, only Bank Mill remains

Over the following three hundred years, Penicuik became increasingly known as 'The Papermaking Town'.