Mill Machinery

Around 1860 the old spinning mill at Lower Largo was converted into an ‘oil and cake mill’ by David Russell.  So now the mill would now receive oil-bearing seeds such as linseed, cotton seed or rape seed and would press these to extract oil, for use in products such as linoleum or paint.  The left over fibrous material from which the oil had been extracted (the ‘cake’) would be sold in slabs as animal food or as fertilizer.  At Largo, the cakes would often be transported by rail. The oil would leave the mill in barrels and some of these would be loaded by crane onto boats that would come into the harbour and up alongside the mill.

The basic process of crushing the seeds involved edge runner stones (see images above) moving around a central shaft to crush or bruise the seed before they were heated in a kettle (large metal vat) and then pressed (see further images below). The water wheel, supplemented by a steam boiler, was used to drive the milling and pressing machinery.  Some mills would have had their own cooperage, machinery repair department and joiner’s shop. We know that at one time there was a joiner at the Largo mill who made wooden wrappers for the cakes (see memoirs of former employee David Wallace).  Large storage areas would be required for the bags of seed, the barrels and the cakes.

Diagrams and photos (which are from the Caledonian Oil Mill in Dundee - taken in 1966) are from the book 'History of Seed Crushing In Great Britain' by Harold W. Brace.  This machinery would have been very similar to that in use at Largo. The same book confirms that the cake presses at Largo were sold early in the First World War to be used to produce gun cotton.  It is believed that the Largo Oil and Cake Mill had finally ceased production of oil and cake on Christmas Eve 1910.  Alex Philp, however, still held the lease until his death in 1931, when the mill returned to the landlord Julian Maitland Makgill Crichton of Largo Estate.

With thanks to John Band for information.