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Black Cart Mills 8: The Candren Burn

Concluding the eight-part journey down the Black Cart:

Just before the Black Cart joins the Gryfe at Blackstoun, the last of its burns, the Candren, falls into the river. Along with the Espedair Burn, which falls into the White Cart opposite Paisley Abbey, the Candren Burn powered and provided process water for two dozen bleachfields south of Paisley, around half of which were on the Candren.

The plethora of high quality textiles produced in and around Paisley from the 1740s created a demand for high quality bleaching and finishing. Textile manufactories or weaving shops in the town, such as the Paisley Stocking Factory ‘put out’ work to most of these bleachfields.

The highest bleachfield on the Candren Burn was at Foxbar, followed by two at Causewayend, a mill and bleachfield at Lounsdale, then further bleachfields at Hillfoot, Bredisland, and two at Meiklerigs. Much of the burn is now culverted among Paisley suburbia, forgotten until heavy rain causes it to rise and flood property.

The burn then passes under the Johnstone Canal, where the poet Tannahill drowned, then through the site of Ferguslie Cotton Mills, to Millarston Bleachfield. Finally, it crossed Paisley Moss. After the burn passes under what is now the Johnstone Bypass (A737), it enters the Black Cart below Candren itself, near Blackstoun. Candren Bleachfield, was one of the earliest in the county, established by 1752.

By the 1780s each field on the burn covered at least two acres, though Causewayend (East) and Lounsdale, both owned by John Craig, were already three times this size. As well as using the burn for process water, most of the bleachfields had water powered wash mills, and latterly added other power driven machinery. Several small reservoirs were built along the burn to store water. The largest survives as Durrockstock Pond. The workers cottages for the bleachfields were the core of the settlements which now form Paisley’s southern suburbs.

In conclusion

The Black Cart from its source to Clyde has powered at least 50 mills and water driven industries. Some of the traditional grain and waulk mills lasted for centuries, others only a few decades. Some remain to be redis

The days of water power are far from past. Some of the bigger mills, including Johnstone Old Cotton Mill, latterly installed turbines to generate electricity from their lades. The image above shows the outlet from a turbine at Old Cotton Mill, Johnstone. Other old mill sites on the Black Cart and its burns are now attracting interest for the small-scale generation of electricity.

Renfrewshire Tile Works 1

In the 18th century, the most obvious improvement to farmland was the enclosure of fields. Less noticeable, but equally important, was underground drainage.

From the 1750s, huge increases in quantity and quality of crops, resulted from the drainage of flat fields and bogs. The digging of ditches and filling them with rubble was common practice on any forward-looking Renfrewshire estate. Further improvements could be made by lining the bottom of the ditch with flat stones, to form underground drainage channels.

From the 1830s, interest grew in an even better solution: the laying of manufactured clay pipes, known as ’tiles’. Initially the tiles were u-shaped, not circular, as they were easier to make. Clay was pressed flat and cut into rectangles, then folded by hand over rods, to form each tile. They were then dried and fired in kilns. Laid open-side down, the tiles often included a separate flat clay ‘sole’. They were known as drainage ’tiles’, probably because they resembled the curving red roof tiles imported from Holland.

In the 1830s and 40s the ministers of Erskine and Renfrew described tile draining as the ‘greatest improvement to agriculture in recent years, which is going forward in nearly all the farms in this parish’. The drainage had particular benefits in the growing of potatoes.

Most large estates sought a supply of clay to set up their own tile works. The landowner usually provided the tiles, with his tenants carrying out the heavy work of digging and laying the tiles at regular intervals across their fields. Apart from improving drainage, the old ridges and furrows were no longer required, and were flattened out.

The best fireclays were found around the north and west of Paisley at Walkinshaw, Ferguslie, Caledonia and Inkerman. These quality fireclays were valuable enough to be mined from the same shaft as coal, which was used to fuel the tile kilns. Although these big works usually produced drain tiles, their high quality clays were suitable for a whole catalogue of sanitary ware. Most tiles for draining fields were produced at smaller rural ‘Brick and Tile Works’ which will be discussed in next month’s Advertizer.

The Smeall Family Bible

Numerous enquiries relating to local history and archaeology are sent to Renfrewshire Local History Forum website. The Forum also on occasion receives remarkably interesting information and artefacts from the enquirers. One of the most interesting of these was from Barbara Triplett-Decrease from Michigan. The enquiry had a remarkable outcome.

Barbara had acquired an old family Bible, printed by Mark Baskett in 1763, with births and marriages of a Paisley family surnamed Smeall / Smail. The earliest entry was the birth of James Smeall on 23rd March 1761. James was the eldest of a family of eight children born between 1761 and 1783. A later family member, Thomas Smeall, married Jane Watson in Thread Street, Paisley, in 1820. Their son, Robert Smeall, born in Paisley in 1830, emigrated to America and married Sarah Lawson (b 1845) in Stonnington, Connecticut, in 1866. The last of the many entries in the Bible is the birth of Thomas and Jane’s third child in Stonnington in 1873.

The Bible itself, being a Baskett Bible, is of some historical significance. The Baskett family were printers to the king. John Baskett, said to be ‘the greatest monopolist of Bibles that ever lived’, set up in business in Oxford in 1713. His earliest published bible sells today for up to £40,000. After John’s death in 1742, his sons Thomas and Richard took over the business. In 1761, his grandson, Mark, continued business until 1769 when he sold out to another printer. Baskett Bibles were published in Oxford, London and for a short time in Edinburgh

Barbara had attempted to find descendants of the Smeall family in Canada and U.S.A. without success. Because the family could not be traced, she was keen that the Bible should be returned to Paisley and she sent it to the Forum. One of our members, Peter Crawford, contacted Paisley Heritage Centre staff, who were keen to accept the Bible and offered to have it rebound. On 19th September, 2016, Barbara visited Paisley and, at a ceremony held in Paisley Heritage Centre, she formally presented the Bible to Provost Anne Hall. The beautifully rebound Bible is now an item in Renfrewshire Archives collection.

Smeath Hill Homestead

Over the last year members of the Forum have been revisiting a number of archaeological sites in the area. One interesting site was Smeath Hill Homestead. The site (NS 3155 6609) lying to the south of Smeath Hill, was first surveyed by Frank Newall in the nineteen-sixties.
The remains of a massive circular stone wall, 2.5 metres wide, surround an enclosure, measuring 15 metres in diameter. The stone built walling is intact with two entrance gaps, one on the east of the wall, and the other on the northwest. Since Newall’s survey, the enclosure has become very overgrown. Evidence of interior structures is obliterated by vegetation and only the tops of a few stones remain apparent on the surface.
However, Newall’s survey gives a detailed interpretation of the structural evidence he found in the interior of the enclosure in the nineteen-sixties. Newall states that the enclosing wall surrounded an internal circular corridor or passageway, which in turn surrounded a large single roundhouse. The corridor was bounded by the enclosing stone wall and the wall of the roundhouse.

The East entrance gap in the enclosing wall led across the corridor to the entrance to the roundhouse. The wall’s North-West entrance led to the northern section of the corridor which was subdivided into three separate cells. The southern section, also subdivided into three separate cells, was entered from the East gateway.

Circular Stone Wall

The remains of numerous Bronze Age roundhouses are to be found in the surrounding landscape, but those enclosed by defensive stone walling are considered to be Iron Age. The site can be accessed from the track leading over the moor from Muirshiel Country Park to Hardridge Farm. The homestead lies some distance to the east of the track. The moorland terrain is boggy underfoot and the site is best visited in dry weather.

Henry Birkmyre and his Descendants

Henry Birkmyre (1762- 1844) worked as a handloom weaver in Kilbarchan, where in 1785 he married his first cousin Agnes Birkmyre. After their marriage, Henry and Agnes attended Burntshields Burgher Church. The baptisms of three of their children, Jean in 1786, John in 1788 and Agnes in 1791, are recorded in Burntshields church records. In 1792 the family moved to Port Glasgow where Henry took up employment in a sailcloth manufactury. A fourth child, William, was born in Port Glasgow in 1802. The Birkmyres prospered in Port Glasgow. Henry soon rose to the position of foreman in Gourock Ropework Co. and was made a partner in the firm in 1814. His portrait, which still exists, is said to have hung in the company’s boardroom.

Henry sent his younger son, William, to Glasgow to be trained by city merchants. This early training paid off and, following in his father’s footsteps, William was appointed as a manager in the rope works. In 1831 he married Margaret Aitken. William was regarded as a shrewd businessman and laid the foundations of the future success and world-wide expansion of Gourock Ropework Co. He retired in 1860 and died in 1862 in Ashgrove, the family home at the bottom of Clune Brae in Port Glasgow.

Two of William’s sons, Henry (b.1832) and John (b.1836) became partners in Gourock Ropework Co. A third son William (b.1838) spent some time in India, and pursued a political career, becoming MP for the Burgh of Ayr. A younger son, Adam (b.1848), attended to the family’s business interests overseas. Under the brothers’ control, Gourock Ropework Co. became renowned world-wide as manufacturers of rope, sail cloth and canvas.

All four brothers became extremely wealthy and were generous benefactors in the local community. Henry was instrumental in founding Clune Park U.P. Church in 1878. In 1881, he diversified his interests and bought New Lanark Mills from the then owner, Charles Walker. Under the Birkmyre family, Gourock Ropework Co. owned David Dale’s new Lanark Mills for the next 65 years.

John, in 1870, appointed David Bryce, a renowned architect, to build his baronial mansion, Broadstone House on the hills above Port Glasgow. He gifted Broadstone Jubilee Hospital to the community of Port Glasgow. William, the third brother, spent time in India and pursued a political career, becoming MP for the Burgh of Ayr. He gifted Birkmyre Park (later known as the Public Park) to the town of Port Glasgow. Adam owned Shallott (now part of St. Columba’s School buildings) and various other properties in Kilmacolm. In 1897, he gifted recreation grounds, now Birkmyre Park,( see image above) to Kilmacolm village. He also had interests in Calcutta in India and in Switzerland where he died in 1906.

Robert Lang Campbell, part 2

In 1846, after the loss of his young wife in childbirth and himself suffering from ill-health on the arduous Mormon trek from persecution in Nauvoo, Robert Lang Campbell (1825-74), a young Mormon priest from Kilbarchan, arrived at winter quarters. Within weeks he recovered his health.

In Scotland, Robert had trained a clerk and, because of this experience, he was appointed as clerk to Brigham Young, John Smith and Willard Richard. This was a prestigious post for a young man. Later he was appointed in charge of the Post Office and was a volunteer in the Pioneers led by Brigham Young. The Pioneers surveyed the area searching for a suitable site for a permanent settlement. In 1848 they found the ideal site and Salt Lake City was founded on the 24th of July.

In 1848 Robert received the sad news from Kilbarchan that his father and maternal grandmother had died. In 1850 he was pleased to be given a mission to return to Scotland. During his time in Scotland he married Mary Stewart. In 1854, as leader of a group of Mormon converts from Scotland, Robert with his new wife again set off for Salt Lake City. The group included an older lady, widow Elizabeth Jordan (née Beveridge). In his diary Robert had recorded visiting Sister Jordan in Stevenson in 1844.

The group sailed from Liverpool and arrived at New Orleans in May. From there they sailed up the Mississippi to St. Louis, and then to Kansas. The last part of their journey was by wagon train alongside the River Platte to Salt Lake City, where Robert and his group of converts settled. As was the Mormon custom, he took a second wife Jeanie Miller. Robert with his two wives, Mary and Jean, had 21 children. In 1857 he married a third polygamous wife. This wife was his older friend, Sister Jordan from Stevenson. Robert was well respected in the community as good husband and father.

Public domain: Courtesy J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah

Furthermore, Robert Campbell, the young clerk from Kilbarchan, also became a prestigious figure in the Mormon Community. He was appointed as Superintendent of Schools for the Territory of Utah and as Mormon Chancellor from 1857 until his death from cholera in 1874. His obituary in the Deseret News stated that he was “an industrious, useful, upright, trustworthy man”.

Robert Lang Campbell’s Diary and further information at :
https://lib.byu.edu/collections/mormon-missionary-diaries

Robert Lang Campbell, part 1: A Kilbarchan Man’s Spiritual Journey

Robert Lang Campbell was born in Kilbarchan on the 21st of January 1825. His parents, Alexander and Agnes (née Lang) Campbell, were members of the Chartist Church in the village. Robert and his elder brother John, much to the chagrin of their father, attended Mormon Missionary meetings. At the age of seventeen Robert, who had trained as a clerk, was baptised into the Church of the Latter Day Saints on the 9th of August, 1842.

Public domain: Courtesy of L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University

He began his missionary work in the local area and Ayrshire and kept a diary recording his activities. In company with other Mormon missionaries he preached in the open air, in people’s homes and at local collieries. Sometimes the group was well received and on other occasions reception was antagonistic. In September he was accosted in Howwood by a drunk man with a broken glass who almost stopped their preaching and, on a mission to Dalry, the missionaries twice in one day got a poor reception from very inattentive sinners. In November, 1843, at the age of eighteen, Robert Campbell was ordained as a Mormon Priest. However, despite his dedication, he made time to visit Kilbarchan to see his sweetheart, Joan Scobie, and his family.

In January, 1845, Robert left his home country and sailed from Liverpool on his way to Nauvoo, the centre of the Church of the Latter Day Saints. The following November Joan Scobie arrived at Nauvoo after a journey of ten weeks, and Robert and Joan were married by Patriarch John Smith. The young couple settled happily in the town’s Mormon community, and Joan was soon pregnant. But peace and harmony was not to last.

In September of 1846 persecution of the Mormons in Nauvoo escalated, with a violent mob firing cannon at the Brethern. For days, battle raged in the town. Eventually a truce was agreed. The mobocrats were the victors and the Mormons were given ten days to leave the town. On 9^th October the Mormon community set off on a long, arduous trek across rivers and prairie to winter quarters. Robert was given part of a wagon to store his effects and he and Joan set off on foot. One week into the journey Joan died in childbirth. Robert, at the age of twenty-one, was left alone and homeless in an alien land. Despite grieving, and now also suffering from a fever, Robert had no option but to continue the fifty day trek to the winter quarters.

Robert Lang Campbell’s Diary and further information at : https://lib.byu.edu/collections/mormon-missionary-diaries

Black Cart Mills 7: Johnstone to Linwood

A short distance downstream from Johnstone, the Old Patrick Water enters the Cart. This burn powered Elderslie Cotton Mill, two grain mills (Elderslie and Mackies Mill), a paper mill, printworks (Patrickbank), and a distillery at Glenpatrick.

On the Black Cart itself, one of the oldest mills on the river was the Mill of Cart, a medieval grain mill. Its rubble dam still survives just downstream of where the cycle path crosses the Cart. (See image above.) The dam was later, via an extended lade, used to power Linwood Cotton Mill.

Linwood Cotton Mill was built in 1792 by James Dunlop, who already owned Gateside Cotton Mill in Neilston Parish. Linwood Mill was, for a time, the largest mill in Britain. From the 1790s, the parish records document children born to the mill workers. Apart from the cotton spinners documented in the records, occupations at the mill included clockmakers, turners, brassfounders and wrights, all of whom built and maintained the mill machinery

Like many cotton mills, Linwood mill was burned down, and was later rebuilt. In an 1804 advert, only one of its six stories remained standing, plus a large water wheel, 14 feet diameter and 12 feet wide. The mill was then rebuilt. At this point on the Black Cart, so far down the river, the bottom of the waterwheel could be swamped at high tide, and a smaller, higher water wheel had to be used.
Beside the big cotton mill there was also a small thread bleachfield. Further down the river at Middleton there was a much bigger thread bleachfield, started by James Smith by 1782.

Less well known is Linwood’s second cotton mill. Henderson’s Mill was built shortly after the big mill, but with only a tenth of the big mill’s 400 workers. Both mills latterly changed to paper making.

Black Cart Mills 6: Kilbarchan Mills

Continuing our journey down the Black Cart.

Opposite the site of Johnstone Old Cotton Mill, is an arch in the high stone retaining wall supporting the former railway (now the cycle path). This marks the entry of the Kilbarchan Burn into the Cart. (See image above.)

The burn rises in bogland on Marshall Moor. Above the village, it passes through Glentyan Estate, where it has been dammed to create a large pond and high level lade, passing over ornamental cascades. This pond was party to store water to drive Glentyan Mill. However it also seems to have been diverted south of Bank Brae to the bleachfields in the centre of the village (see below).Glentyan Mill was a traditional grain mill of which ruins survive.

Although famed for its weaving industry, Kilbarchan is one of the only Renfrewshire villages not to have a big cotton mill. The nearest cotton mill to the village was at Cartside. A relatively late proposal to erect a large steam powered cotton mill nearer the village in 1825 never emerged.

However Kilbarchan did make innovative use of its water resources. Just downstream from Glentyan mill was a water powered thread mill in a converted house built over the burn by James Alexander in 1756. The previous year Alexander had invented a machine ‘to go by water for twining thread’ and received a grant of twenty pounds from The Board of Trustees for Manufacture. Alexander’s house is shown on Roy’s map of 1755, situated west of the kirkyard directly on the Kilbarchan Burn. This linen thread mill can lay claim to being the first water-powered thread mill in Scotland.In the heart of the village in the 1780s were at least six bleachfields which bleached the fine textiles which had been hand woven in the village. These bleachfields were located in the Bog Park, although only scant evidence remains today.

Downstream of the village there is a tradition of another mill in the Victorian period. Beyond this, the lower parts of the burn pass through Milliken Estate, where the burn was straightened and passed over cascades supplying ponds, before entering the Black Cart at Johnstone.

Black Cart Mills 5: Johnstone’s Water-powered Cotton Mills

On the Black Cart, just below Milliken and Cochrane Mills is a low dam. From this dam a wide lade continues, under a purpose built arch in the bridge over the Cart, to Cartside Cotton Mill (now a paper mill). The mill was built in 1792 by the owners of Calderpark Cotton Mill at Lochwinnoch. Cartside was one of six Johnstone mills built between 1782 and 1796. Their owners are well known, and our interest here is in how the mills were powered.

From Cartside Mill, the lade continues downstream for more than 2.5km, partly in a brick-arched tunnel, to drive three other big cotton mills: Hag (1794), Johnstone Old (1782) and Johnstone Laigh (1783). Two small mills, Milliken waulk mill and a lint mill were both still operating in the 1790s. They stood on the opposite side of the river from Hag Mill, which was demolished in the 1920s.

Further downstream, Johnstone Old Cotton Mill was built beside the old Johnstone grain mill, at Johnstone Bridge. The Old Cotton Mill was the oldest surviving cotton mill in Scotland, until it was destroyed by fire in 2010.

Old Cotton Mill Johnstone

From the Johnstone Old Cotton Mill the lade continued through a special arch under Johnstone Bridge, then through the town’s old bleaching green to Johnstone’s fourth big cotton mill, the Laigh Cotton Mill. Below Laigh Mill the tailrace continued downstream for 500 metres to a point not far above the dam for Linwood Cotton Mills.

Slightly further downstream, the Peockland Burn enters the Black Cart below Linwood Dam. This burn is the confluence of the Craigbog and Floors burns. Despite its modest size, at one time the burn powered a number of mills, and also drained the Quarrelton Coal Mines via a water powered engine. Two smaller water powered cotton mills, Bank Top (1792) and Montgomeries Mill (1796), were built on the burn. However, when a planned expansion of their reservoirs threatened to flood the town, these mills were soon converted to steam power.

Johnstone had numerous other textile factories, though none were water powered. However, according to the late Sylvia Clark, Johnstone had a seventh water powered cotton mill, the Adelphi Mill in Graham Street, fed from the Peockland Burn. When the Catholic Church was being built, an underground lade and a wheel pit were discovered on the site.