Forestry Memories

Double bench sawmill at Stobhall Estate

Double bench sawmill at Stobhall Estate

Date Added: 19 July 2022 Contributor: Norman Davidson Year of Photo: 1985 Picture No: 5425

The image is courtesy of Tam Anderson, Perth, who worked in forestry for many years. While as forester on Stobhall Estate he recalls:

“This was the saw bench we had on Stobhall estate in Perthshire the estate was owned by Lord Perth. I was there in the 1980s and 90s up to when the estate was sold off after Lord Perth passed away. The sawmill was made I think after the Second World War.”

This traditional style double saw bench would have been driven by steam engines in days of the past. The set up is very tight and close minimising the effort required to pass the cants from the primary saw to the products saw.

The PDF below has two other images of the unit.

Any comments and stories of working saws the same as this one would be very welcome.

Download Large Version (818kB)

Download PDF (1.6MB)

Groups: Sawmills, pulp mills, chipboard mills

5 Comments

This Yankee sawmill was worked with a flat belt pulley fitted to the back of a Ford tractor at the proper revs for the saw to work it had a crank bench. It cut fencing wood for the estate among other things. Comment left on 19 July 2022 at 14:33 by Tam Anderson
I’m not saying the portable Sawmill you see in the photos we had on Stobhall estate was made by this company, but I’ve just read some information about portable sawmills. There was a place in Forres who made them Wm Reid (Forres) Ltd they named it the Forresia and was working in 1950s. Comment left on 23 July 2022 at 13:15 by Tam Anderson
In one of the photos of the portable sawmill notice the hydraulic timber winch leaning against the wall. (Second image in the PDF) Comment left on 24 July 2022 at 10:03 by Tam Anderson
Tam - Alasdair , Good work on spotting the same features on the metal frame sawmill. Good to know for restoration work.

See the following link of Forresian sawmill by William Reid of Forres (will have to be copied and pasted - sorry) https://blog.scottishagriculturalimplementmakers.co.uk/a-well-known-forres-name-william-reid-forres-ltd/ Comment left on 26 July 2022 at 16:19 by Norman Davidson
Just brought a Forres mobile rackbench hope to get it back home this week.hope to post a few pictures later Comment left on 31 December 2023 at 18:26 by Robert jones
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