2S8 REPORT OF MEETINGS FOR 1908 



with the Commissioners of Scotland were hanging fire " be- 

 cause they will not conclude unless they have a poor thing 

 called Cawmylls." Then, a little later, during the truce, it 

 was reported from Berwick, " The Scots intend to steal 

 Cawmylls — we have written to the Scots Commissioners about 

 it. The truce is to last thirty days, but the Scots are at all 

 times in such readiness that 5,000 men may be suddenly 

 made, without proclamation, to assemble at Cawe Mills within 

 twenty-four hours." Since 1534, when the district was made 

 over to the Scots, the property' has changed hands several times. 

 At last, in 1892, it was purchased from the Oswald family 

 by Mr Edward Grey, the present proprietor, who has built 

 a new house for himself not far from the old ruin, near the 

 edge of a precipitous cliff, or sandstone scar, rising perpendi- 

 cularly from the river-side, which he has called Cawdorstanes. 

 Although a water mill has existed here from very remote 

 times, the present one, of which Mr George Hogarth is 

 tenant, dates only from 1789. It is worked by a powerful 

 current from the river which is led first by a tunnel about 

 thirty yards long cut through the sandstone and passing 

 underneath the road, and then, as a mill race, along a deep 

 channel. It is worthy of notice that the water-wheel not 

 only drives the mill, but can also drive a threshing machine 

 in the steading far above. The motive power is communicated 

 by means of a very long angular iron shaft, which has a cog 

 wheel connection with the perpendicular driving shaft of the 

 mill. This shaft first passes along the top of a wall for a 

 considerable distance, and then for a hundred yards through 

 an inclined tunnel in the solid rock to the shed in the 

 steading above, where the threshing machine is situated. 

 The tunnel was cut and the shaft fitted not long before the 

 year 1840 by the aforesaid Mr Oswald. In the Statistical 

 Account of Berwickshire of 1841, it is mentioned as being in 

 working order, and it is believed by the son of the late 

 proprietor, that it was set up in the late thirties or the 

 early forties. It is an interesting example of the distance 

 to which powers of machinery may be transferred by the 

 application of very simple means, though, now that we have 

 learned how to convey motive power by electricity to 

 immensely greater distances, it attracts no notice. The 



