The Aberfeldy Water Mill is a restored Grade-A listed oatmeal mill, now home to the largest bookstore in the Highlands, with an art gallery, coffee shop, and visitor centre.

The present building dates from 1825 but by the late 1970s the mill only operated part-time and in 1982 it was sold to Tom Rodger, a retired miller from Cupar in Fife, who undertook an award-winning renovation and added a visitor centre. This closed in 2000.

The mill is powered by a 15 foot cast iron overshot water wheel, fed by Moness Burn through a long channel called a lade, which runs for 500 yards underground. The water wheel powered a pair of 57 inch French Burr stones, each weighing an impressive 1.5 tonnes. The original grinding stones remain in place, under their wooden covers.

Though the mill no longer grinds oats, the wheel is still in working order, and now feeds power to a micro-hydroelectric installation. Most of the original mill machinery is intact. The mill building is single storey, with an attic and partial basement level. The style of architecture is known as Breadalbane Estate gothic, with chlorite-slate rubble used as the main building stone.

The first mill on this site was built around 1740 by the Earl of Breadalbane, who then sold the mill into private hands in 1771. The mill remained in operation until 1983, when it was renovated and reopened as a working heritage site.

Then in 2004, it was converted again into its current guise as the Aberfeldy Watermill Bookshop, Gallery & Café; a combination heritage site, bookstore, and cultural venue, and was opened by Michael Palin in 2005.

In 2009 it was awarded UK Independent Bookshop of the Year and, in 2016, included in the New Yorker book of 75 Greatest Bookstores in the World. In 2022 the Bookshop and Café featured in National Geographic’s top 7 UK bookshops and cafés.

For information on the individual Heritage Trail locations, click on these links:

00: A brief history of the Churches in the Aberfeldy area; 01: The Square; 02: Aberfeldy Town Hall;

03: Former St. Andrew’s Church; 04: Birks of Aberfeldy; 05: Moness House; 06: Aberfeldy Hospitals;

07: Former Wee Free Chapel; 08: Independent Chapel; 09: The Watermill; 10: Parish Church;

11: Breadalbane Academy; 12: St. Margaret’s Church; 13: Black Watch memorial; 14: Aberfeldy Golf Club;

15: Wade’s Bridge; 16: Weem Parish Church; 17: Menzies Mausoleum; 18a Castle Menzies;

18b Castle Menzies Walled Garden; 19: Our Lady of Mercy’s RC Church; 20: Aberfeldy Branch Line.