Holemill
Thou bailiff, when the sowing is done, let the land rest, and let
the men who tilled the land rest also. Let the parish keep festival;
purify the parish, ye husband- men, and offer the yearly cakes on the parish hearths. Propitiate Earth and Ceres, the mothers of the corn, with their own spelt and flesh of teeming sow.
—Ovid
The ruins of this 18th century corn mill and kiln (built 1723) sit in a water meadow approximately seven metres from the Kerbet Burn opposite to and slightly north of Holemill Farm (Grid reference: NO482436). This is believed to be built on the site of an older mill first mentioned in the Register of the Great Seal of Scotland, RGS 1511 3648, in 1511. The grazing land adjacent to the modern farm is where a large mill pond (Grid reference: NO482435) serving both the mill and a sawmill, was once situated, connecting to the Kerbet Burn via a curiously long east trending water channel. This can be seen on the OS Six Inch 1st edition, 1843-1882, (National Library of Scotland).
Approximately 80 metres to the north of the mill (NO 482437), along a single lane road, is a right turn onto a farm track. This track is what remains of a Roman road leading to a temporary marching camp. The defences are still visible amidst the conifers, appearing as a one metre high continuous mound, broken only by entrances and finally disapearing at the perimeter of the woods. If you arrive at Holemill via Whigstreet from the east, then you will have travelled through the camp as the road cleaves through the procestrium and the south west corner of the enclosure.
In James Dorret's map dated 1750 (National Library of Scotland), the enclosure is referred to as 'A Danish Camp'. Most likely this reflected a locally held belief at that time; to this day apocryphal viking histories persist still in the Monikie Parish area, particularly in relation to Camustane wood and Curhills.
References
Frazer, James George, Sir. (1931) Ovid's Fasti. London. William Heineman Ltd.
National Library of Scotland, 2017, Forfarshire Sheet, Six Inch First Edition 1843-1888, http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=15&lat=56.5802&lon=-2.8365&layers=5&b=1
National Library of Scotland, 2017, James Dorret, 1750, http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=13&lat=56.5616&lon=-2.8538&layers=125140579&b=3
Bibliography
Canmore, 2017, https://canmore.org.uk/site/313174/holemill-cornmill-kirkbuddo