It is not known who the first miller at Dell was
although local tradition mentions the ‘Muillear Glas’ as having been the miller
in the early days. After him, Donald Munro was in charge for a while and in 1853 the
MacFarquhar family took over the running of the farm. The mill was closed for the duration
of the Second World War. It reopened after the war ended and continued to be operated by
the MacFarquhars until 1954 when Donald Morrison took over the farm. He kept the mill
going until 1970.
In 1981 Mr Morrison leased Dell Mill to
Comunn Eachdraidh Nis. The Society set about raising funds to carry out restorative work
to the mill complex, with organisations such as The Carnegie Trust, the Historic Buildings
Council, The Scottish Tourist Board, the National Conservation Society, The Countryside
Commission and The Highlands and Islands Development Board.
The first project began in 1983 with a
contract being awarded to renovate aspects of the building and to reconstruct the dam to
provide water power for the wheel and return the mill to working order. The project also
managed to acquire from South Dell Common Grazings an area of land surrounding the mill
dam. This land was fenced off so that the nearby riverbank and dam would be protected from
grazing animals.
The second phase of the mill project was
carried out in 1985 under the auspices of a job creation programme sponsored by the
Manpower Services Commission (MSC). This work included decorating the interior of the
building and assembling display boards and signage. The mill was opened to the public in
July 1986.
Over recent years the Dell Mill has been
closed to the public because of the cost of staffing and administering the facility.
However, ambitious plans are currently underway to carry out a major new renovation of the
mill and provide a high-quality visitor centre.
Over the centuries the livelihood of the
people of north Lewis has traditionally depended on the two staples of fishing and
crofting. Barley was the main cereal grown because the local soil was particularly suited
to its cultivation. Oats were also grown, mainly to provide animal feed. The crofting work
would begin in the springtime when barley and oat seed were sown and the potatoes were
planted. Local crofters also cut peat on the surrounding moor to provide winter fuel. The
summer months were spent tending the crops and drying and harvesting the peat. All the
family was engaged in this work. In autumn, when the crops were ripe, the oats were reaped
with the scythe and the barley would be plucked by the root. The barley sheaves were used
to thatch the traditional ‘black house’ dwellings that the crofting families
lived in.
Once harvested, the barley and oat seed
would be separated from the sheaves by beating them with a wooden flail. When the wind was
favourable the crofters would winnow (separate the chaff from the seed) the crop with a
riddle. Once this was done the seed would be ready to be kiln-dried. Many crofters would
do this work in their own villages since this reduced the waiting-time at the mill. Those
crofters who dried their seed in the mill would bring peat with them to heat the kiln and
would pay the miller according to the number of bags of seed they wished to process.
On the day the seed was to be ground
someone would be despatched to run out the Dell glen and open the sluice gate on the river
if the mill pond, near the site of the present Ness Hall, was dry. The sluice gate on the
mill pond was then opened - three turns of the raising screw for shelling and six turns
for grinding. The water then ran through the lade, which terminates at the top of the
water wheel. The water cascaded over the wheel, turning it, so providing power for the
mill. At this point the grain was put into the shelling hopper and the pinions were
adjusted for the shelling process. The belt was removed from the large riddle in the meal
house. The shelling removed the husks and the dirt from the seed and the grain would then
go down through a spout to the meal house. After this it was hauled back upstairs with a
rope through a hatch in the floor. When this was done the grain was ready to be ground
into meal.
The pinions had to be reset and the belt
replaced on the riddle. The grain was then poured into the grinding hopper. The inside of
the hopper is calibrated to enable the mill dues to be calculated. These were the
miller’s payment for his services. The reading inside the hopper was examined and,
accordingly, the mill dues were taken from the grain, using two units of measurement - the
peck and the quarter peck. The miller would fill these vessels and empty them into the
chest where the mill dues were kept. When this chest was full the miller would grind this
grain for his own use.
The grain would fall from the hopper on to
the stones and, when the water was applied to the wheel, the stones would begin the
grinding operation. After the wheel was set in motion the stones needed to be supplied
continuously with grain. Otherwise they would be damaged. There were cams on the hopper
which shook its spout from side to side in order to let the grain drop down onto the
stones where it was ground into meal. Some crofters required coarse meal and for this the
top stone was raised slightly by turning the raising screw in an anti-clockwise direction.
Others wanted finely ground meal and for them the stone was dropped further down to
make the required product.
Once a year the millstones were dressed
with a sharp iron hammer so that the grain would attach itself better to them. This was
necessary since the endless turning of the stones rendered them smooth after a while. The
proverb - ‘A mill-stone needs to be dressed but not over-dressed' - owes its origins
to this practice. The suggestion here is that if the indentations in the stone were too
large, the seed would stick inside them and the grinding process would not work
effectively. The ground flour would fall down into the meal house and into the large
riddle where the meal was put to one side and the husks to the other. The meal was then
shovelled into bags ready for the owner to uplift them.
