1761
Tower windmill built
Glassaugh Windmill was built around 1761 as a circular tower windmill overlooking Sandend Bay.
Site overview
Glassaugh Windmill stands in farmland overlooking Sandend Bay and the Moray Firth. It is a circular rubble-built tower windmill on a reefing stage and was built around 1761. The windmill had fallen into ruin by the time it appeared on nineteenth-century mapping.
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
Glassaugh Windmill, also known as Sandend Windmill, is a former tower windmill near Sandend in Aberdeenshire. The structure is a four-storey circular-plan tower windmill of rubble masonry, set on a reefing stage and standing in farmland overlooking Sandend Bay and the Moray Firth. It was built around 1761 and was one of the prominent eighteenth-century windmills of the Banffshire coast.
The mill was already ruinous by the time it was shown on nineteenth-century mapping. The tower survives as a major landscape feature, although the windcap, sails and working machinery have gone. No complete ownership sequence, machinery inventory, or final working date has been established from the sources checked.
Timeline
1866
Windmill recorded as ruin
Glassaugh Windmill was recorded as a ruined windmill by 1866.
Sources and records
Historic Environment Scotland listed building record; Trove / Canmore place record; Windmill World site entry; Scottish Windmills: An Outline and Inventory; Historic Ordnance Survey mapping