Bello Mill
Encyclopedia
Bello Mill was a mill dating from the 18th century on the river called the Lugar Water
Lugar Water
The Lugar Water, or River Lugar, is created by the confluence of Bello Water and Guelt Water, both of which flow from the hills of the Southern Uplands in East Ayrshire, Scotland....

, on the estate of James Boswell
James Boswell
James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck was a lawyer, diarist, and author born in Edinburgh, Scotland; he is best known for the biography he wrote of one of his contemporaries, the English literary figure Samuel Johnson....

 (Lord Auchenleck) in Ayrshire
Ayrshire
Ayrshire is a registration county, and former administrative county in south-west Scotland, United Kingdom, located on the shores of the Firth of Clyde. Its principal towns include Ayr, Kilmarnock and Irvine. The town of Troon on the coast has hosted the British Open Golf Championship twice in the...

, in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

. Before being rebuilt in the 1940s, it had three different sets of mill stones. It had one pair of millstones for rough grinding, and the two pairs of millstones for grinding oatmeal,

The neighboring Bello Mill Cottage is famous for being the birthplace of William Murdoch
William Murdoch
William Murdoch was a Scottish engineer and long-term inventor.Murdoch was employed by the firm of Boulton and Watt and worked for them in Cornwall, as a steam engine erector for ten years, spending most of the rest of his life in Birmingham, England.He was the inventor of the oscillating steam...

, who was born in 1754. Murdoch invented gas lighting and did experiments on steam engines. Murdoch's father John Murdoch was tenant and millwright at Bello Mill, which he had taken over in 1754.

In 1760, John Murdoch installed the first iron-toothed gears used in a mill in Britain at Bello Mill. These gears were cast at Carron's Foundry in Falkirk
Falkirk
Falkirk is a town in the Central Lowlands of Scotland. It lies in the Forth Valley, almost midway between the two most populous cities of Scotland; north-west of Edinburgh and north-east of Glasgow....

. Bello Mill was at that point the most technically sophisticated mill in the UK.

Bello Mill no longer is intact, but the gears are still visible. It was used until the 1960s. The roof is now missing and it is danger of falling into the river.

The Bello Mill Cottage is still inhabited.
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