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Description

This paper mill was built, with the support of the Clerks of Penicuik, by Agnes Campbell, a very successful printer and bookmaker. The mill expanded to fill the flat land on the north bank of the River North Esk and had a mill lade. The mill was used for French prisoners of war during the Napoleonic Wars and returned to being a paper mill afterwards. It was not only the oldest mill but also the largest. Penicuik developed to the north at a higher level.

Traffic for a paper mill could be considerable: wood pulp, esparto grass and coal inwards and paper outwards. When the first railway opened in 1855, the Peebles Railway, its Penicuik [1st] station was half a mile to the south and at the top of a steep climb from the mill, nevertheless there was a goods yard.

It took until 1872 for a more suitable railway to be opened, the Penicuik Railway. This ran from Hawthornden Junction to terminate alongside the mill with a passenger station, goods station and two sets of sidings serving the mill, both approached from the east. The east end of the mill was served by a line which first swung south to serve Low Mill before passing under the line to reach two groups of sidings in the east of the works. The west end sidings ran north from the goods yard.

In the 1950s the mill was expanded and the two groups of sidings joined by a line looping round the north of the site.

The railway closed to passengers in 1951 and remained in use for goods and minerals until 1967.

The paper works closed in 1975.

Local

Penicuik Papermaking - Valleyfield Mill

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