Stanley Mills

Stanley Mills can be found some six miles north of Perth and a mile and a half east of the A9. You reach it through the village of Stanley, a purpose built village built to serve the mills in the years from 1784.

The story of The Mills is an intriguing one in which few people made any money from their investment. The owner of the land here in the late 1700s was John Murray, the 4th Duke of Atholl. He wanted to make use of the huge flow of water sustained by the River Tay to process the cotton.

From the car park you make your way though the an number of complex of mill buildings, the Bell Mill, built in 1786-7. Level 1 of the Bell Mill tells the story of 200 years of cotton production at Stanley.

Moving on to the ground floor below Level 1 is the outhouse in which tar was used to waterproof cotton belts used to drive machinery in the latter part of the 1800s. You can also view the pits in which the original 1787 Arkwright waterwheels turned.

On Level 1 of the Mid Mill is the carding room, home to some truly industrial scale machinery once used to comb out raw cotton into strips. These are the only carding machines still in situ in Scotland.The final area of the exhibition is on Level 2 of the Bell Mill. This has changed little since the mill was built in 1787 and is thought to be the best preserved 18th century workspace anywhere in the world.

The arrival of the railway in Stanley in 1848 proved a boon to Stanley Mills. Until then it had taken five days for cotton to be brought to Stanley from Glasgow docks by cart, and as long again for the finished product to return. From 1848 it only took a matter of hours by train.