When we discovered that we would need a fire escape at the rear of the building, it seemed sensible to restore the old kiln and in the two photographs below you can see that work in progress. When work on the main Mill building was well under way, we were…
In the spring of 1985, Rob and Moira Ferguson were awarded a Manpower Services Commission contract to restore the Mill: two site supervisors, a historian, a costume conservator, four research assistants, fourteen tradesmen and twenty-four labourers joined Rob as architect, Moira as administrator and Gavin, their son, as miller-elect on…
Dalgarven Mill finally closed in 1972 and lay empty for twelve years, at the mercy of the weather. As Listed Buildings, they were protected from demolition but not from wet rot, dry rot, woodworm and rising damp. When Rob and Moira Ferguson were gifted them in 1983, they were in…
The Ferguson family first came to the Mill in 1883 when John Ferguson took over the tenancy from Matthew White. In 1894 he was succeeded by his sons John and David, and in 1922 they purchased the property from the Blairs of Blair who had owned it since 1622. In…
Today my son is fifty years old, my granddaughter is nineteen years old and it is exactly thirty years since my wife and I opened our Museum in the newly restored industrial monument where my family had lived and worked since 1880. I frequently find that living in the country…
Our curator has reached the age, where his deep historical knowledge of the customs of yore is somewhat confused. He arose early on the first of May, rushed outside, washed his face in the dew, and somewhat astonished the first car-borne commuters to Glasgow by jumping around in the front…
The collection of costumes at Dalgarven is now extremely dense, in that it stretches from China in 1760 through the Barony of Blair in Dalry in 1775 through Regency, Georgian, Georgian dresses Early, Middle and Late Victorian to a super-abundance of Edwardian, a smidgen of Naturalistic at the end of…
This is a long-delayed continuation of my blog about poetry, which finished with my leaving in mid January to go and give a speech about Robert Burns. So here I am again after two blood soaked forays into the world of emergency medicine one in Edinburgh and another at Crosshouse….
The name Galanthus seems to come from Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, but no it’s the Latin name for the Snowdrop. Large clumps of snowdrops are now adorning the Mill’s riverside banks. Walk past the waterwheel and there are the snowdrops, in full bloom, a beautiful sight amid the…
Museums of course are a source of not only pleasure but education and information. In the last few weeks, we have been asked about thrawcrooks, if you are an Ayrshire country person, this will mean nothing to you. However, if I tell you it is pronounced thurrock, then you will…
The Trustees and the Millers Kitchen regret that under the present circumstances we are closed for at least the next eight weeks.