The lost distillery at Burnhead, Edinburgh
A study of the history of the south side of Edinburgh has revealed that a whisky distillery was established at Burnhead, Gracemount in the late eighteenth century on a site at Lasswade Road. The distillery building was illustrated in a survey plan of the land and property of the Gilmour family of Liberton and Craigmillar, produced in November 1794 and now held in the National Records of Scotland (NRS) at General Register House.
A visit to the site found no trace of the distillery building. The position of the building to the immediate south of a small burn took advantage of a constant water supply essential in the distillation process. The Lasswade Road offered easy access to product distribution by cart to Edinburgh and Leith. Further raw materials such as barley for malting and coal for the furnace were easily found within the adjacent estate lands. Local labour supply and essential skills such as smithing and cooperage were locally obtained.
What the maps revealed
The research project first looked at the available maps. The first Ordinance Survey showed that the distillery building had vanished by the middle of the nineteenth century to be replaced by a building named Gracemount Farm. An early map surveyed in 1766 by John Laurie shows three roughly square buildings placed differently on the site to the building illustrated on the 1794 estate plan. The earlier buildings were later identified from Court of Session records as a brewery set up by George Colvin possibly as early as the 1730s. The Court of Session records also revealed that from 1752 to 1761 the premises were operated as both a brewery and a distillery by a Mr Cleghorn, the distillery pot having a capacity of 130 gallons. The Court of Session records indicated no activity on the site from that date to the new development in 1790 which appears on the Gilmour estate plan. A search at NRS found account books and related documents in the collections for the Burnhead Distillery covering the period July 1790 to April 1793. The name of the distiller was Andrew Stein.
Andrew Stein (1741-1828)
Andrew Stein was a member of the great and numerous Stein family. The Steins together with their neighbours the Haigs dominated the Lowland Scottish distillery industry in the 18th and early 19th centuries. They were amongst the great innovators of 18th century Scottish industry, building an early canal, a railway and a port facility in support of their distillery at Kennetpans, the largest in Scotland when it was built. The Steins were the fathers of the large-scale whisky export industry of today. The Stein family are reputed to have settled in Scotland from Holland in the 12th century, farming land by Clackmannan near Kennetpans on the River Forth. The family history and numerous achievements of the Stein family are to be found described in detail on website of the Kennetpans Trust set up to record and preserve the remaining buildings of the distillery.
The commercial activities of the Steins and their Lowland distilleries were very successful but depended on the regulation of the industry by a series of Acts passed in Parliament. The Wash Act of 1784 was designed to promote the regulated (taxed) production of whisky and gin in the Lowlands. Production surged and a growing percentage of the London gin market was served by the Steins and Haigs through the Forth ports.
In 1786, the London gin producers were alarmed at being priced out of the market. They lobbied Parliament and the result was the passing of the Scotch Distillery Act which together with further legislation in 1788 required the Lowland distilleries to pay a for a special licence to export spirit out of Scotland and to wait for twelve months before being able to recommence the exports to London. The Act forced many of the Lowland distilleries into bankruptcy and closure. Into this dislocated market stepped Andrew Stein who set up at Burnhead, a small distillery, with a single copper still of 119 gallons capacity.
The business of distilling
The Burnhead accounts give an interesting picture of how such a distillery operated. Amongst the first entries in July and August were payments for a government licence which was paid in advance twice a year and amounted to £252 16s 11d annually. This amount rose slightly for the second year. The tax was a large amount on the debit side of the business that enabled Burnhead to trade around Edinburgh. The numerous illegal distilleries did not have to bear such a handicap and dominated aqua production in Scotland. (The records of Burnhead Distillery never use the word ‘whisky’, the distillery product being referred to as ‘aqua’, short for ‘aqua vitae’, Latin for ‘water of life’).
Throughout the time of operation the price of the aqua delivered from Burnhead was between 2s 7d and 3s per gallon. Simple arithmetic shows that it would take about 2,000 gallons of aqua to be sold to bring in the years licence fee without allowance for costs incurred as overheads, or any necessary profit.
The accounts show that labourers at Burnhead were paid 6s per week, a shilling per day allowing for a day off on Sunday. Early purchases made at the start of the enterprise were a furnace door for 10s 6p, a thermometer for 12s 6d and coal for the furnace at 5s 6d per cart load. Barley was also bought by the boll, an old measure for grain roughly equal to a modern 200 litres. The first purchase was 112.5 bolls of barley with a greater quantity of ready malted barley also purchased to speed the first distillation.
The sales records show a local spread of purchasers who seem from the size of the orders to be to suppliers of whisky to licensed drinking premises of which there were many, with possibly a few individual purchasers for home consumption.
The aqua was sold in barrels of various sizes and transported by horse and cart. An account entry records £12 14 3d for the horses expenses, shoes etc. Sales recorded in the accounts include a number to Mr George Armour of Gilmerton who was the best customer of the distillery. Mr Smith of Liberton purchased 138 gallons for £19 11s and Mr W McQueen of Nether Liberton who 34 gallons, early purchases. Customers lived as far away as Biggar with a number listed as being resident within the City of Edinburgh.
An Action for 'Nuisance'
Production and sales continued into 1791 then an action for “Nuisance” was taken out against Andrew Stein by Patrick Miller of the Dalswinton estate near Dumfries. Miller also owned Southfield, a house and estate which lay a short distance east of Burnhead and downstream of the burn that supplied water to the distillery. The action was taken to the Court of Session and a transcript can be found online. Miller stated that the distillery was discharging brown polluted water and foam which emitted a “nauseous stench”. Stein was immediately in serious difficulty as the Court issued an interdict that the distillery be shut down before the start of the case was to commence. This remained in place throughout. The verdict was generally unfavourable to Stein, though the last line stated that arbitration would settle the matter. There was no indication of how long that process would take or when or if the interdiction would be lifted.
© National Portrait Gallery, London
Amongst the evidence given in the case were interesting comments pertaining to the earlier history of the distillery. Stein affirmed that the Burnhead site had been used for about sixty years as a brewery and distillery. He introduced extracts from the Collection Book of an Excise Officer that showed the site operating from 1752 to 1761 in both capacities. In 1752 the distillery operated a still of about 130 gallons under a Mr Cleghorn. If Stein’s first assertion was right a brewery at least would have been working at Burnhead possibly from the 1730s, though the site had been abandoned for years before Andrew Stein acquired the property for redevelopment.
The action for “Nuisance” was a considerable financial blow to the distillery, the licence to operate and other overheads had still to be paid whether producing or not. The distillery accounts examined continued up to April 1793 after which they ceased.
A final bankrupcy
No further records have been found except a paper dated April 1794, a sequestration meeting was held by the creditors of Andrew Stein in the house of Robert Lawson an innkeeper of the Cowgate, to recover debts owed relating to Burnhead Distillery. Bankruptcy and legal actions were a feature of the Stein’s business experience and throughout their history the family members exhibited a resilience in business and financial adversity.
Andrew Stein survived bankruptcy and emerged to acquire Hattonburn Distillery, outside Kinross in 1795. It is described on the Kennetpan’s website as “making the worst whisky in Scotland” By 1825 he had moved on to Kirkliston Distillery, forming a partnership known as Stein and Allan. In 1827 this became Andrew Stein & Co and shortly after in 1828 Andrew Stein died. He is buried in Orwell Churchyard at Milnathort. The gravestone records his family who were buried beside him. Unfortunately it has now fallen from its original base and is broken into two pieces. The company, Andrew Stein and Co became bankrupt in 1831.
Acknowledgement
We thank OEC member Kath Hughes, for giving us permission to publish this research by her late husband, David Hughes.
