1600–1725
Tower windmill built
Balgone Barns, Old Windmill was built as a circular tower windmill, probably in the seventeenth or early eighteenth century.
Site overview
Balgone Barns, Old Windmill is the stump of a former tower windmill north-west of Balgone Barns. Historic Environment Scotland records the site as Balgone Barns, windmill NW of, a scheduled monument added on 25 February 1980. The former listed building record describes a circular windmill tower with vaulted base, probably of seventeenth- or early eighteenth-century date.
Map
Map markers and directions links are provided for location reference only and do not indicate public access or permission to enter a site.
No site photograph is currently available. Images will be added as field visits are carried out.
History
Balgone Barns, Old Windmill is a former tower windmill near North Berwick in East Lothian. Historic Environment Scotland records the monument as Balgone Barns, windmill NW of, scheduled on 25 February 1980. The former listed building record for Balgone Barns, Old Windmill describes a possibly seventeenth- or early eighteenth-century circular windmill tower with a vaulted base extending south, built of rubble and now roofless.
Donnachie and Stewart describe it as the stump of a tower mill about three-quarters of a mile south-south-west of Berwick Law, standing about 35 feet high and 15 feet in diameter, with an underground vault extending from the base. They identify it as a late seventeenth-century barley mill which probably fell out of windmill use in the eighteenth century and was heightened to become a dovecot. It had certainly ceased to function as a windmill by 1799, when it was recorded on Forrest's map as Pigeon Cot.
No detailed ownership sequence or surviving machinery has been established from the sources checked.
Timeline
1799
Recorded as pigeon cot
The former windmill had ceased to function as a windmill by 1799, when it was recorded on Forrest's map as Pigeon Cot.
1980
Scheduled monument designation
Balgone Barns, windmill NW of was scheduled as a monument on 25 February 1980.
Sources and records
Historic Environment Scotland scheduled monument record; Historic Environment Scotland listed building record; Trove / Canmore place record; Scottish Windmills: An Outline and Inventory