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It`s high time we introduced ourselves!
We are the Finzean Bucket Mill Community Interest Company (CIC), a not-for-profit social enterprise tasked with caring for and returning to working order, the Finzean Bucket Mill, a water-powered sawmill in Aberdeenshire which produces unique turned wooden buckets. The Bucket Mill is one of three water-powered wood mills owned by the @birsecommunity Trust and are all A-listed, in recognition of their national significance.
To bring our mill back to life, we have a huge task. We are creating, from the ground up:
šŖµ A contract sawmilling business to provide us with the timber we need to repair these buildings, with timber sales to the trade and public bringing us core revenue to underpin all our work.
šŖ A specialist millwrighting building contracting business, to undertake all of the complex, bespoke and challenging work required on the Finzean Mills safely and skillfully, with building conservation best practice integrated into every element of our work.
āļø A heritage skills training hub, offering skills placements, craft Fellowships, courses, business support and educational activities, centred around repairing our mill. We want to turn the tide against the endangered craft of Millwrighting being on the `red-list`.
š§ŗ A sustainable model rural craft business where we will begin producing wooden buckets once again!
Our work in the immediate future is all about the journey to producing our first bucket, which will be a story all about people, place and landscape. We have a lot of dots to join up in our work, with a local and resilient supply chain to create which connects the communities on our doorstep to the natural materials we all need to live and thrive and sustain the Bucket Mill for generations to come.
There are loads of ways you can support our project and help return our mill to working order:
š” Sign up to `The Bucket List`, our pre-order book for bucket production. Visit our webshop for more details (link in bio)
šø Make a donation to our project!
āļø Sign up to our free newsletter
ā¹ļø Visit the mill on our public open days. The mill is NOT normally open to the public.
www.bucketmill.co.uk
Oct 8
The Weir
In August and September work took place to rebuild the Bucket Mill`s weir, a unique construction of roundwood logs and river stones, built by many hands. This is the first major task required to return the water-powered sawmill to working order.
www.bucketmill.co.uk
Oct 7
Timber Cut to Order @ The Bucket Mill
We are gearing up to mill another load of home grown Aberdeenshire European Larch for future repairs. This time round we can offer a cut-to-order service with local delivery. Need some cladding, fencing or roof timbers? Saw backs or sticky bits for the garden? Get them from us and fuel our repairs to our historic sawmill in turn!
Buying your timber from us keeps our wheels turning. As a not-for-profit social enterprise, the proceeds from timber sales go straight back into our ongoing work to return the Bucket Mill to working order. Now we`ve finished the mill`s weir our attention turns to producing the sawn material we need for the next stages of the project.
Don`t need timber but want to support us? You can! By signing up to The Bucket List, our order book for future bucket manufacture. Link in bio.
Info on cut-to order timber:
All lengths are 3.6m
Email enquiries@bucketmill.co.uk with your timber dimensions for a quote.
All orders must be paid in advance. Payment will be need to be made the week before we mill.
Local delivery around Finzean/Banchory/Torphins/Aboyne available.
Cut-to-order service offered on a first-come-first served basis: we have a limited number of slots available. We still need to make timber for our own repairs!
We anticipate to mill in late November or early December. Milling is done on a modern machine.
Oct 3
Weir complete ā
ļø
After nine weeks of work, mission accomplished!
Today also marks our 1st Anniversary of leasing the Bucket Mill from the @birsecommunity Trust!
This is the first repair project of many to turn around the fortunes of the Finzean Mills. We have a lot more work to do at the Bucket Mill, and hopefully soon, in support of the BCT at the lower Sawmill & Turning Mill.
We`re now back to the drawing board to start fundraising and plannjng for the next repairs. The best way to help us is to make a donation or sign up to `The Bucket List`, our order book for future wooden bucket production. Such support is a huge help for us – we can use it as leverage via match funding for grants, making each Ā£ donated go further wherever possible.
More details on our website, www.bucketmill.co.uk.
This weir repair project has been made possible thanks to an amazing team of contractors, skills placements and volunteers – thank you to them all for making it happen. Huge thanks are also due to our funders, Historic Environment Scotland, the SPAB Mill Repair Fund, the Trades Widows Fund Charity and the Shannel Trust
Oct 1
Outflow Lade Screen
In order to meet stringent conditions of our water permit from SEPA, we have had to install a flat bar screen in the outflow lade, which is intended to prevent adult Salmon and Trout swimming up to the bottom of the wheel and getting trapped when the water is turned off.
In true Bucket Mill style we have met bureaucratic requirements with craft skills and put drystane dykers @zafiropoulosalexis and @holt.from.the.blue and our lad @jacknesbitblacksmith onto the task of bringing a paper plan to fruition.
This is representative of the numerous hurdles which need to be crossed to get the Bucket Mill back to working order and jobs like this don`t come cheaply! You can help us meet these challenges by signing up to `The Bucket List`, our order book for future bucket manufacture. Visit our webshop for more details.
Sep 28
Thank you to everyone who visited us today for Aberdeenshire Doors Open Days. We are running another day of tours tomorrow, Sunday 20th September. There are still tickets available on our website: www.bucketmill.co.uk/shop
Tours are by free pre-booked tickets, which helps us manage visitor numbers and limited car parking spaces. We ask for a voluntary donation of Ā£10 per person which is a huge help to us for our ongoing repair works.
Don`t forget you can also sign up to `The Bucket List`, our first-come-first-served order book for when we can begin manufacturing buckets once again.
Sep 19
The show goes on at the Bucket Mill! The weir is now nearly complete and attention in the last couple of weeks has turned towards the sluice gates, lade and footbridges.
Thanks to the sterling efforts of Cat and Euan who visited last week on a skills placement, the new footbridge and access platform at the upper sluice gate is nearly finished. The only thing that stops this being finished off is the cobbling of the lade, which is planned for the end of September. With this done we can lay the last of the deck and open this up.
This week we`re cracking on with the screens required by SEPA to let us keep the water flowing down the lade, which have been expertly fabricated by right hand man @jacknesbitblacksmith . Some 600 holes have needed to be drilled on these! The patience of a saint…
To solve a leaking lade problem, we have boarded out the bottom of the lade in this area so that water can be channelled up and into the wooden lade to the wheel, solving a long standing headache and removing a lot of plastic sheeting.
This week we also welcome back @rjecameron who has got stuck into renewing the middle sluice gate which had reached the end of its life. A new footbridge, which will double as a safe access platform is to go in here, too.
Don`t forget you can visit the Bucket Mill this weekend: pre-booked tickets for tours are live on our website.
Sep 14
Bucket Mill Tours – Next Weekend!
Join us on Saturday 19th and Sunday 20th September for tours inside the Bucket Mill, our water-powered sawmill from 1853 which produces unique turned wooden buckets.
Tours are by pre-booked tickets only, to help us manage limited parking on-site and space inside the mill. Tickets are FREE but we ask for a donation of Ā£10 per person to support our work and ongoing repairs. Donations from tours make a BIG difference!
Please arrive ten minutes before your booked tour time so we can complete a brief safety induction and begin promptly. We also ask that you leave promptly after the tour to make parking spaces available for the next tour group.
āļø Learn about our historic A-listed mill, and the earlier sawmill on the site.
āļø See inside the mill and learn how the Finzean Bucket is made.
āļø Find out about our not-for-profit social enterprise and how we are creating a model rural craft business.
āļø Hear about our summer works to repair the weir in the Water of Feugh, which will bring water back to the wheel.
Visit www.bucketmill.co.uk to book tickets. Donations can be made online or bring cash on the day.
Sep 13
