Dyesholm Mill – or Dysholm, or Dyesholm Bridge Mill, or even Dyewood Mill was one of a half dozen Blantyre mills on the River Calder. Dyewood Mill or Dyesholm Bridge Mill was situated on the west bank of the Calder River adjacent to the Pattenholm Ford directly below the Cottage Hospital on Bardykes Road. Although in Cambuslang Parish, it was a mill on the River Calder, hence why I’m including it here.
Roys Military Map of 1747 shows Dyseholm Mill and Cottage
Maps of the 18th Century suggest the mill sat directly on the bend of the river, with its name taken from the nearby Dyesholm field. No buildings or ruins are now visible following post WW2 landscaping, but the mill building was shown on General Roy’s Military map of 1747 and on early 19th Century maps on the north side of the river bend. The mill is not on the 1859 map, although the nearby cottage was. It ceased operating sometime between 1816 and 1859.
The cottage, fields and mill were entwined together, known as Dyesholm.
Dyesholm cottage nearby was clearly the “home of the dyer” (if that’s the right term for somebody who worked in that mill!), Dyewood mill, either referring to the trees surrounding the mill, or the process itself. The ford and field may also have been linked to the manufacturing process.
The area was famed for dye processing of wood. One of the most widely used sources of colouring clothes in those days, was logwood or dyewood. The mill would have been involved in chipping, rasping and grinding dyestuffs, besides providing liquor for colours to manufacturers of fancy woollen and cotton articles with the nearby water powering basic machinery.
The distribution of Dyestuff mills was closely related to that of their customers. In all, there were probably no more than twenty-five such mills in Scotland between 1730 and 1830.
According to the 1930 valuation roll, the Bannatyne family of Milheugh owned some of the vacant land at Dyesholm. Today, only a small few stones remain of the former Dyseholm Cottage, with no sign of the mill.
From “Blantyre Explained” by Paul Veverka (c)2016