Co-Operative Society Building

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Built in 1876, the amusingly-named Gusset Building was built as a warehouse for the Scottish Co-operative Wholesale Society, the first purpose-built warehouse of its type in Scotland. The SCWS quickly outgrew the space, though, so it was converted to offices for various Co-operative Society operations, including the in-house magazine and later the ground floor was used for funerals. The building is now empty, and is up for sale with plans to convert to 75 flats, but current economic climate, blah blah blah…

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Guardbridge Paper Mill

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The mill at Guardbridge, near Leuchars, has been producing paper since 1873, when William Haig (of the Haig whisky) converted a distillery site to paper manufacture. The mill was originally a general paper producer, but lattery it specialised in security papers used for financial and official documents.

The worsening economic situation has hit all the Scottish paper manuafacturers hard – see my previous reports from the Inverkeithing and Carrongrove mills – and Curtis fared no better, going into administration in July 2008. The site is currently in the hands of KPMG, who are slowly selling off the equipment, but almost everything remains for the moment. It’s a great chance to see a mix of modern and antique mill equipment.

First up, the boiler house:

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