Crossroads and Characters
49. THE FULLER'S EARTH MILL.
When Sir Bernard Rollo set up an industry at Keltie to extract and refine fuller's earth - a clay with cosmetic, medical, and cleaning properties - the old Findony corn mill at what is now Millhouse got a new life refining the Keltie output. Large tanks and buildings at Keltie produced good quantities of the fuller's earth which when water cleaned, filtered and dried came here to be ground and air-cleaned. Then it went to the British market mostly as cosmetics: one product was a dusting powder with the brand name Emol Keleet. The industry lasted from 1893 until the 1920's, but there was one big problem: marvellous though fuller's earth is, the Keltie deposit was not high quality. What history hasn't yet told us: did local weavers use Keltie fuller's earth to clean and bleach the linen, cotton and wool cloth they produced?
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