PENICUIK COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
TRUST LTD
Scottish company SC380626 Scottish charity
SC037990 www.penicuikcdt.org.uk www.bankmill.co.uk
Full details of the Trust’s composition and
partnership links are given towards the end of this webpage
Note from the chair:
Roger Kelly writes:
Late November 2011:
bad news for Bank Mill
–We’ve been negotiating the potential transfer of a complete papermaking
line from Manchester University to Bank Mill – beater, strainer, Fourdrinier machine, drying cylinders and calendar rolls
(see below). But last week our hope of a working mill to train and make the
most of Penicuik’s world class papermaking heritage was stopped in its tracks. The
Trust’s October offer to purchase Bank Mill had been rejected. So we’d put in a
second offer that involved a total package of £240,000, of which £205,600 was
new money on top of the £34,400 we’ve already paid in rent. Despite the
property being valued at only £150,000 by both our and the seller’s surveyors, this
second offer was also rejected by the owners. With some difficulty we have
removed our equipment since we cannot any longer afford the £600 per week
occupation charge if there is no reasonable prospect of purchase. “Penicuik
the
On the Trust’s Penicuik walled garden project, last week our solicitors
were ready to exchange missives giving us entry to the upper walled garden on
Penicuik Estate on 18th November. Then a glitch, the Estate factors had mapped
the wrong locations for photographs of the state of the buildings. Hopefully,
by the time this comes out, all will be corrected and we shall at last be in! A meeting with be called early in the New
Year to pick up all the food-growing enthusiasts we had in 2008. On the Trust’s
Penicuik Cinema, we are being offered a huge electric screen – at 6m by 4.5m
even bigger than the one we have used since 2007 – and are talking to
The Future –though we’ve taken a knock with the loss of Bank Mill, the
Trust still aims to gain Scottish and international recognition for
Early November
2011:
Our second offer to
purchase
The Trust’s October
offer to buy Bank Mill (see below) was rejected, so we’ve made a new
one. Determined to do our utmost to
secure this international historical resource we’ve scraped together more of
the Trust’s ready cash in gifts and interest-free loans to make a new and even
higher bid for the Mill
The new offer
through our solicitors Gillespie Macandrew is of an
immediate down payment of £155,600, followed by 4 annual payments of £12,500, making £205,600
in new money.
Once the down
payment of £155,600 is made, PCDT Ltd becomes the owner, subject to security
for remaining loan repayments and outstanding instalments.
We draw attention
to the fact that £34,400 in rent has already been paid to date, making a total
package of £240,000. No further
rent would be payable.
Deadline for
acceptance or rejection of this offer should give time to remove the Trust’s
assets from the mill if necessary.
Once again, we’re
proud to say that these funds come not from Lottery grants, nor from local or
national government, nor from large wealthy outside donors, but entirely from
the commitment of local people.
In the last month,
through our contacts in the paper trade, we’ve been exploring the possibility
and logistics of obtaining for Bank Mill a modern papermaking machine currently
sited at the
Minimum batch size 5kg of pulp,
production rate of up to 200 kg/day, deckle max. 50 cm; machine
speed: 3–55 metres min; Fourdrinier forming section;
dandy rolls; suction press; reverse-nip plain press; pre-drying section; 7
steam heated cylinders; all temperature controlled; horizontal size press;
after-drying section with 3 steam heated temperature controlled cylinders;
machine calendar with 6 rolls, 5 nips, steam heated and temperature controlled;
plus reel-up facility.
In the last month we’ve had positive support from Museums of
The
Trust has arranged to take an active part in
1. Opened
Bank Mill, our last remaining local papermill,
to 150 visitors on Europa Nostra's
2. Introduced
family workshops in papermaking, papier-mache
and paper-clay, along with fundraising events at the Mill during
the year.
3. Programmed
to give nearly 20 events to
4. Put
£200,000 of locally-raised money on the table to secure Bank Mill’s purchase as the centrepiece of our
international heritage and community development aspirations.
5. Worked
with senior students at
6. Introduced
Penicuik's unique heritage to every first year pupil at Penicuik High School in
tours of Bank Mill and
7. Shown
Bank Mill and many other aspects of Penicuik history to all third year students
and staff of Glasgow's Mackintosh School of Architecture, who have visited the town
on successive weeks to note, sketch and photograph the town and its
surroundings
8. Been
advised by papermakers and museums at home and abroad on prospects for our
work in Penicuik, potential exhibits, and machinery
9. Put on
over 40 exhibitions and displays in Penicuik Town Hall almost every Saturday
throughout the year.
10. Projected
35 feature films on Sundays throughout the year, mainstream, new,
foreign and classic, involving school students in choice, projection and
accounting.
11. Progressed
the lease for our restoration of Penicuik's unique Walled Garden, one of
The history we tell is of
·
Scotland's pre-eminent papermills from
the early 1700s to the 1970s which gave us Scotland's Bibles, Scott's
novels, Burns' songs, Turner's watercolours, the great Chambers and Britannica
encyclopaedias, Australia's banknotes, Canada's stamps, the inspiration
for Japan's modern paper industry, and a world of trade and cultural
connections, using Cutty Sark and the fastest ships
of the time.
·
The female leadership of the paper trade here
in the 1700s (Agnes Campbell at the start of the century, Marjorie Cowan
at the end)
·
Agnes Campbell's links with John Law, the French
treasury and the Misissippi Company and Marjorie
Cowan's links with Jacobites in Europe
·
The contact with revolutionary forces, French
prisoners of war and the Friends of the People, and with the ideas of Robert
Owen
·
Great movements of social improvement from
the days when Elizabeth Fry visited Thomas Chalmers in
Penicuik, to the local co-operative society, workers housing and
industrial schools.
·
The impetus through Penicuik's James Finlayson for great industrial and social advances in
·
Transfusions of Cowan papermaking wealth to
create Edinburgh's Royal Infirmary, the Scottish National Hospital for
Incurables and the regeneration of old Edinburgh
·
Worldwide investments from these Penicuik sources
to build the railroads that opened up Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia
·
Local examples of the work of great engineers like
·
A world-leading tradition of machine
engineering from the Bertrams and others
·
Development of the shale oil industry
by William Young and Thomas Beilby, and Beilby's later work with gold and radium.
·
Cultural giants like RL Stevenson, SR Crockett,
Bill Douglas and Karl Miller
·
Scientific genius like Clerk Maxwell, Cargill Knott and the science of seismology in
·
The Cowan family's Japanese links through surveyor McVean, and their successor Colin Gubbins work
in underground warfare in Europe
·
Links with the Challenger expedition, with India,
and with the children's books of Helen Bannerman
·
Political leadership of every colour -Gladstone, Rosebery, Cowan, and the fight to abolish paper duty which
made Edinburgh a mecca for educational book
publishing and the printing of fine magazines.
·
Lincolnshire architects and builders who made their
life's work in Midlothian like Frederick Pilkington,
John Dennis and the Toynbee family.
·
Advanced yet simple cuisine from Mrs Johnstone, Scotland's answer to Brillat-Savarin
and Mrs Beaton, and the mid 19th century Howgate Inn
·
Local mapmaking traditions from W&AK Johnstone to Bartholomew's Edinburgh Geographical
Institute and its relationship with resilient, large-sheet local paper
·
Conan Doyle's medical master, Joe Bell of Mauricewood, the brilliant original for Sherlock Holmes
·
Thomas Adams and his pioneering planning and
housing work from Carlops across Britain, Canada and
the USA, and Robert Naismiths mid-20th century
continuation of it in Penicuik
·
The story of General Maczek's
Polish Forces in
·
Penicuik schoolboy aircraft designer James Arnott Hamilton and his development of the Concorde
·
Many other local world-achievers from rugby to
football pools, plant-hunting to fashion photography, folk singing and
brewing to post-natal care see some of them on the Penicuik Greats website
October 2011:
Our Bank Mill year
of lease is coming to an end.
We have made an
offer to purchase. Time is running out.
October note from the chair: Penicuik’s Bank Mill Project – The first
year
The Bank Mill Project to
transform the last historic paper mill building left on the Esk into a
nationally important Papermaking Heritage Centre has received praise and
recognition from many quarters across the UK and abroad. It is still in its early stages. This is a
progress report on events in the past year -a year in which we have secured
finances above the market valuation and have submitted an offer to purchase.
Our aim for Bank Mill
Our vision for Bank Mill is to create a nationally
important attraction that brings visitors to
A year ago: the emergency lease
To forestall the sale and demolition of the last of
what were once very many historic paper mill buildings on the Esk, we signed an
agreement on
Market value and purchase
Bank Mill was this year valued for the Trust by
property and valuation surveyors Hardies of Dalkeith at £150,000. This figure we believe is essentially the same as
the market value estimate given by the vendor’s surveyors. We are delighted
to be able to report that we now have money ready to pay this market value and
more, and our solicitors Gillespie Macandrew have
submitted an offer to purchase at £175,000 with an entry date of October
20. Our funds have come not from Lottery
grants, nor from local or national government, nor from large wealthy outside
donors, but from the commitment of local people. Raising more than the
current market value has been a big achievement for us in the present financial
climate, where fund-raising remains extremely difficult. [Details of an increased November offer
are at the top of this page]
Premium for housing development.
We all want an attractive development of Bank Mill.
The vendors believe that Midlothian Council would be happy to see housing
development on the site. Remembering days of boom not long ago they may hope
that it could be sold for two or more times the current market value. Hardies
are of the opinion that the site’s location and conditions limit its current
value. As a charity, the Trust must not stray far from professional advice.
Papermaking exhibitions and workshops
Over the last year PCDT has prepared displays on
paper making and local heritage, and shown them to the public in the mill. In
April, we held a trial Open Day at which children and other members of the public
could make and take home their own sheet of paper, with the supervision of a qualified outreach
papermaker who gave her services free. Since July 9, Bank Mill Open Day
exhibitions have been weekly on Saturdays or Sundays, with other occasional
children’s workshops on paper related crafts, ranging from further papermaking
to papier maché
and origami.
Doors Open Day
Our inclusion in the Midlothian Doors Open Day in
September – part the European Heritage Days programme – recognises that Bank
Mill is a place of historical and cultural importance. 150 visitors from as far
a field as Kelso,
Benefit events
Further evidence for the support for the Bank Mill
Project within and beyond
Education
We see education and training at
the heart of the Bank Mill Project and are working with teachers in
National and international impact
Roger Kelly has been invited to make a presentation
in
Visit of students and staff from
Cowan
advertisements display James Finlayson
bench display
Valleyfield demolition
display Local papermaking history
and process display
Esparto processing display
Displays out of picture in machine hall: Bertrams and other
machinery illustrations
Displays beside the railway loading bays: Benefit
events, Penicuik railway
and its designer Thomas Bouch
Twenty students from the Glasgow College of Art
Architecture School chose us for their research project and visited Bank Mill
on September 30. The Open University Scottish Graduates Association is visiting
on October 15. The head of the Paper Industries Technical Advisory Board and an
advisor to The Paper Trail based at the Hertfordshire, home of the first
papermaking machine in the world, have visited the
mill to discuss our project. We have visited heritage papermaking centres in
Papermaking equipment
Until we become owners, charity law does not allow us
to put resources in a major building refurbishment or to install valuable paper
making machinery. However, two senior paper making engineers, including Barry
Read of the Papermaking Industry Technical Advisory Board, visited Bank Mill to
discuss of the project. They judged that our proposal to produce low-volume,
high-value hand-made rag paper for the niche graphics art market could be
commercially viable. With a specialist engineer from the Two Rivers Mill in
Volunteer labour
Local volunteers contributed hundreds of hours of
their time working to clean and repaint key parts of the old building so that
the public have been able to visit and see its potential. After plumbing and sanitation was damaged by
the big freeze over New Year, a local plumber gave his labour free to replace
all pipework and restore use of the toilets.
Hydropower
Though water power is not a feature of Midlothian
Local Plan’s Renewable Energy policy, 150 years ago this was the main source
of power for local industry. The
Engineering interest: MacTaggart
Scott
We are not yet in a position to pursue such a
scheme until Bank Mill is secured, but have been encouraged by supportive
Penicuik businesses in the engineering field. We have begun correspondence with
MacTaggart Scott, the innovative Loanhead-based
world naval engineers. They have
expressed great interest in the project and invited us for discussions about
their supplying mechanical, electrical and hydraulic work free or at cost in
support.
Condition of Bank Mill
The remaining parts of Bank Mill – the core machine
hall probably dating to 1803 plus the 1872 addition of the railway wagon
loading bays – have been neglected and are no longer wind and water tight.
Repairing the valley gutters and slates to stop water leaking is obviously a
priority but has to be delayed until we become owners because that is generally
a condition of repair grants. It only goes to emphasise the commitment of wellwishers happy to come to benefit events where they had
to dodge the drips! One of the three Bank Mill patrons, Colonel Edward Cowan,
is a senior descendent of Alexander Cowan, the papermaking patriarch. After a
career in the Army he was the Chief Executive Officer of the UK Federation of
Roofing Contractors before retirement. He has contacted his former colleagues
on our behalf. Colonel Cowan’s son Brigadier Cowan DSO commanded Task Force Helmand and the Black Watch in
Future plans
This project has captured the public imagination
and has undoubtedly helped to increase membership of the Trust, now over 200
and on a rising trend. So far, we have
made neither structural changes to the building nor
changed its external appearance.
However, we have begun the task of planning future refurbishment and
building work, and have had helpful support and offers from architects. We want this to include the construction of a
new pedestrian and disabled access from
Our intention is to make Bank Mill self-financing
for recurrent costs for both the heritage centre and the making of paper, with
emphasis on education, training and the development of craft skills. Visits to
seek advice and information about the management of heritage centres have
included the Biggar Museum Trust, Heart of Hawick, New Lanark, the Poldrate
Centre in Haddington and the
Bank Mill is essentially a people project which we
intend to build on sound foundations, with financial self-sufficiency as the
watchword. We believe we have shown this in our Cinema for Penicuik which has
now become weekly with solid local youth support. For Bank Mill, our patrons Ian MacDougall the writer and Gerda
Stevenson the actor will be a source of good advice on working history at the
mills and the use of drama to bring it to life.
The Bank Mill project has gained the support of
people in Penicuik and the surrounding region. It represents a truly
imaginative scheme for improving the economic viability and quality of life in
the area. Local people need the reassurance that Midlothian Council and
national bodies stand beside us in supporting the principle of our
project. That support will be a big help
for fund-raising to adapt and develop Bank Mill in the months ahead.
Roger Kelly
PENICUIK COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
TRUST LTD
Penicuik Community Development Trust Ltd (responsible for the Bankmill Project, Penicuik Food Project, Penicuik Open House and Penicuik Cinema) is a company
limited by guarantee number 380626 with charitable status registered with OSCR
number SC O37990 – Directors Roger
Kelly (chair), Roger Hipkin (secretary 20A John St. Penicuik EH26 8A), Jane MacKintosh
(treasurer) forming part of a Managing committee with Anna Graham, Bill Fearnley, Caroline Maciver,
Chantal Geoghegan, Chris Langdale, Dave Stokes, Doreen Gillon, Jane Kelly, Marianne Cortes, Mose Hutchinson, Penny Wooding, Simon
Fraser, Ulla Hipkin, elected annually at the Trust's AGM. Patrons Ian MacDougall, Gerda Stevenson, Colonel Edward Cowan. Solicitors Gillespie Macandrew.
Trust official Website www.penicuikcdt.org.uk Bank Mill website:www.bankmill.co.uk The Trust is a Member of Development Trusts Association Scotland (DTAS) and works with
Penicuik Community Council, Midlothian Council, Midlothian Voluntary Action, the
Midlothian Growing Ideas Partnership (including Midlothian Garden Services, Mayfield & Easthouses Development
Trust, and other garden and food projects in Midlothian associated with the Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens),
and the Mapa Scotland restoration of the Great
Polish Map of Scotland at Eddleston, , and supported
the papemaking tercentenary led by Penicuik
Historical Society. . There are personal
and mutually supportive links with Penicuik Community, Sport &
Leisure Foundation, Penicuik
Community Arts Association, the Penicuik House Project and the Saltire Society, with community
groups and trusts in Aberfeldy, Broughty Ferry, Gorebridge and Moffat, with
Penicuik’s twin town at L’Isle-sur-la Sorgue , Vaucluse, Provence, with Salaberry-de-Valleyfield,
Quebec and with the Papeterie St-Armand in Montreal.
Books by Ian MacDougall record
human stories of men, women and children in the Penicuik mills
Through The Mill, the personal
recollections of Penicuik paper mill workers, is edited by Ian MacDougall and published priced £11.99 in a 670
page paperback by The Scottish Working People’s History Trust FK1 5LN, ISBN
978-9559981-0-2
The Prisoners at Penicuik and All Men
are Brethren record use of the Mills as prisoner-of-war camps two centuries ago
Penicuik previously…
Roger Kelly’s Papermaking homepage
Roger Kelly’s original Bank Mill Project page
Simon Fraser & PCDT’s www.bankmill.co.uk