Maybe we could just go out towards Innerwick via Whittingehame and back the same way. That would avoid the exposed return from East Linton. Only problem would be finding a place for lunch. Gifford?
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Events, rides etc.
Tour of East Lothian chimney farms
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Posted 12 years ago #
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East Linton is only about three miles from Whittingehame so we could divert to East Linton for lunch before returning by a more inland route - the tree sheltered roads around East Saltoun and Pencaitland.
Posted 12 years ago # -
East Linton or Gifford are close enough to eachother that we could go to either depending on wind / how hungry we are etc.
Or both!
Posted 12 years ago # -
Think I'm not going to make it. Got an ill daughter and can't really be gadding about for most of the day, much as I'd like to. Have a good time y'all.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Sorry to hear that JP. Hope your daughter gets well soon.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Posted 12 years ago #
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Posted 12 years ago #
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"Sorry to hear that JP. Hope your daughter gets well soon."
Thanks Tom - she's a lot better today - hope you had a good day.
Impressed by whoever had bare legs AND bare arms!
Posted 12 years ago # -
I have to say WHAT A DAY! Regretted wearing my kneewarmers and had my sleeves rolled up all day.
Simply lovely cycling weather.
Managed to miss kick off due to puncture that turned into pump failure that turned into 2 further tubes exploding that turned into ruptured tyre. A new tyre and tube later and only an hour late I headed off and managed to catch everyone else at Gifford - in fact they had been so busy stopping and marvelling at chimneys and taking pictures I got there first.
Then it was up onto the high ground to the east from where you can see six different chimney farms, some of which we were able to investigate.
Then we realised it was 20 to 3 and sun-down was around 20 to 5 so we beat a hasty retreat with a quick stop to look at the strange ironmongery next to the chimney at Samuelston.
Tom will be better able to say what we visited / passed / saw and Amir and Chdot will have better photos. I only got one chimney picture.
Posted 12 years ago # -
JP, sorry you couldn't make it. It was really great day out - very interesting and the East Lothian landscape was as beautiful as ever.
It was really good to meet chdot finally and the company was excellent all round.
Sorry to anyone who was shocked by the skin exposure above but it was quite warm!
Posted 12 years ago # -
The bit you missed kaputnik took us from Fisherrow Harbour to Inveresk where we stopped to look at Pinkiehill chimney. We climbed the hill to Carberry where chdot blithely cycled in to the back of the steading and discovered a haggis factory. We took the back roads through Elphinstone, New Winton and Pencaitland to Samuelston and hopefully got photos of the chimney at East Mains. And then having been in constant non-communication via smart-phone we cut up towards Gifford past the oddly coloured development at Bolton (photos chdot?) for a lunch-time meet-up.
The bit you missed chdot after you left us in Gifford comprised a long ride out to the old estate at Whittingehame where we spotted the chimneys at Papple, Whiitingehame Mains, East field, Overfield, Luggate and sunnyside. We visited a couple of those and added Traprain to the total before time-trialing it back towards the land of the phone signal. I make that a total of twelve chimneys. Not bad at all.
A great day and good to finally meet you properly chdot.
Posted 12 years ago # -
What is the collective noun for chimneys?
A stack of chimneys?
*groan*
Posted 12 years ago # -
A couple of pics after chdot (offical photographer left us in Gifford)
Admiring Luggate Chimney
and the chimney itself
More photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/amir_on_wheels/sets/72157627887756835/
Posted 12 years ago # -
Tom the chimney at Dalkeith that we were talking about was here:
You can see it if you look at Streetview or even the satt pic
Posted 12 years ago # -
chdot, what was the state of the Pencatitland railway path?
Posted 12 years ago # -
Yeah fab day out, good company - only had K for lunch.
I turned back because I wanted to investigate the Pencaitland Path. Hadn't ridden it for years. MUCH better than it was.
Weather really fabulous. Mostly sunny, not too much wind - even less PM.
Photos later.
This was the way I came back - via E+W Saltoun. (EveryTrail didn't want to work at first.) UPDATE have added in route from Gifford + other bit of surfaced Pencaitland Path which I didn't actually ride. I once rode the next section (basically field) but it ends at the Tyne as the bridge has been demolished.
Posted 12 years ago # -
From looking at old maps, the mystery chimney at Carberry ("Springfield") appears between 1854 and 1894. It is marked as a saw mill in 1894. The complex is extended by 1914 edition. Next 1:2500 map isn't until 1959, by which time it is simply marked "works".
The settlement (Smeaton) around the crossroads here was much more extensive than it is now. There was a Police station opposite where the chimney now is, a railway halt (Crossgatehall) for a few years, rows of cottages associated with the colliery (abandoned when it closed and either pulled down or buried under the bing), a school, a football pitch and a village hall. Oh and a "pheasantry" in Carberry estate grounds just over the wall on the left as you go round corner at top towards Elphinstone.
Posted 12 years ago # -
STOP PRESS
this property schedule from last year would seem to confirm the theory that it was a candle works - at least in the more recent past as the 70s buildings on the site are claimed to be part of candlemaking.
Reading a bit more;
The buildings on site were formerly used as the saw mill and laundry for Elphinstone Estate and more
recently Carberry Candle Works utilised the traditional buildingsSo the saw-mill marked on the map was there. The chimney could have belonged to the laundry or the saw-mill or perhaps both! Although you wouldn't need high pressure steam to clean your underpants.
It would seem someone wants to turn the development into houses. Importantly;
The chimney stack will not be incorporated into the proposed development and its removal will be the responsibility of the
purchaserPosted 12 years ago # -
"would seem to confirm the theory that it was a candle works"
No theory, definitely was - 70s until fairly recently (http://www.welcometoscotland.com/things-to-do/shopping/lothians-borders/carberry-candle-cottage).
Someone decided it was a logical extension of the tallow refining business, though the candles were made of normal paraffin wax.
Posted 12 years ago # -
On the subject of the strange tanks outside Samuelston farm, I've been doing a bit of research (i.e. Googling). The vertical structure is very like what is called an "egg ended boiler", however if it was a boiler, it should be horizontal. And in the boiler house! (Cold rain falling on a hot boiler would not do it any good - and you still need some way in for the flue gases, which clearly weren't going in that little pipe out the bottom and makes no sense to put them in the top)
However, the reason egg-ended boilers were so built with the domed ends was to resist pressure and it seems many were later recycled as steam or compressed air receivers. So it could be that it is a steam receiver, where you could build up pressure before feeding it into a machine of some sort. Steam enters through pipe in bottom from boiler house, tapped off at the top where it is hottest and driest (wet steam is not good for machinery)
Posted 12 years ago # -
My dad was saying that he remembers mobile steam threshers going from farm to farm when he was a kid. Near Llansantffraid
Posted 12 years ago # -
I suppose these much grander constructions pre-date mobile versions, which would have made more economic sense given that they must only have been fired up occasionally throughout the year when there was a harvest to thresh.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Posted 12 years ago #
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Posted 12 years ago #
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@kaputnik, I think you may have solved the mystery of the old iron-work at Samuelston. A Google image search for "egg ended boiler" produces several pics of almost identical objects. They were re-used as pressure vessels, holding steam in reserve or something. Maybe the fact that it's outside, putting a couple of feet of masonry between it and the operator backs up that theory. If it blew up it would at least be outside.
Posted 12 years ago # -
@chdot: Was It Findlay's Famous Haggis that we found? Their shop is in Portobello. When that chimney gets knocked down I'm going to try to save one of the chimney bricks. And I'll try your suggestion of looking in Haddington Library for records of the chimneys and contacting the Council archaeologist.
Posted 12 years ago # -
@Tom if you save enough of the bricks you could build a little section of chimney in your back garden! Claim it's a "raised flower bed"
Posted 12 years ago # -
Indeed
Posted 12 years ago # -
Posted 12 years ago # -
amir: You've found a chimney! And at Dalkeith, it's only just up the road. Thanks for that.
Posted 12 years ago #
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