Innerleithen Mill Lade
Uncovering the Tweed worked with Innerleithen Community Trust to help record and present the mill lade running through Innerleithen to a wider audience. Known locally as The Dam, the lade runs from the Leithen Water to the Tweed. It has been at the heart of several industries critical to the community from the medieval period to relatively recent times, with at least 13 waterwheels using it over the centuries. Innerleithen Community Trust are curating the feature, ensuring it remains in good condition and information about it is more accessible to the public. They recently launched a new trail exploring the lade, with interpretation panels focussing on its ecology and heritage.
UtT delivered a series of workshops run in collaboration with local experts from the Trust to record the lade and bring it to a wider audience. Locals were invited to visit and re-engage with the lade in a series of events and the local youth group and school pupils visited and learnt about the power of water. Memories of the mill lade were gathered from senior citizens who came along to an event presenting the work at Robert Smail’s printworks.
Members of the local community played a key part in recording the lade to preserve it by record for the future. Volunteers undertook general photography, survey and photogrammetry all along the length of the mill lade and at features of interest related to the lade such as the weir mechanism, Caerlee Mill, Robert Smail’s Printing Works and Auldmains water wheel. The visual records of the lade give great insight into hidden or hard to get to parts of the feature as well as making it available online to all.
You can explore the lade and all the features along it through the storymap linked below, which presents the results of their work.
