Monamore Mill

"Sliddery via Ross" the signpost says, at Monamore, where once there stood a mill. A rustic bridge, a burn, the scene conveys but little of the travails of the few from whose imaginings and dreams so long ago an edifice uniquely beautiful they grew. Of elegant design, so grand and tall, admired it was, and loved, by one and all. So proud it stood, o'erlooking Lamlash Bay. Its backdrop was the Ross, a bonny hill. Close by, the smoky clachan known as Croc, adjacent to the burn which powered the mill. Idyllic was its setting, pride of place, famed artists did this lovely scene embrace. But so-called progress was a contradiction, leading to neglect and dereliction. Its sculpted sandstone walls now grim outlines, a home to dripping moss and grassy ferns, the roof collapsed, its sorry shell exposed to all the elements, the mill returned to nature, and the earth from which it came. A hazard now, and who must take the blame? Its demolition caused much muttering. That lovely mill is now road bottoming.