Thanks to the St Andrews Preservation Trust we have been able to add the following historic photographs from their collection.

The photo of the Law Mill wheel with a woman feeding the chickens is quite striking and evocative of the period. It’s a pity that milling had already stopped when this photo was taken.

The water pouring out of the harbour wall below the Shore Mill is coming out of the lade and began its journey 1.5 miles away at Law Mill.

These digital images are copyright © St Andrews Preservation Trust and are used with permission.

Both the St Andrews University Photographic Archive and Historic Environment Scotland have some interesting old photos of the Lade Braes and the water mills, some as early as 1900. Unfortunately we are not able to reproduce them on LadeBraes.net due to copyright restrictions, so I have added direct links to them from these pages: Lade Braes History, Denbrae Mill, Law Mill and New Mill.

Welcome to LadeBraes.net. Our site is now live and invites you to browse through pages of historic and environmental information relating to the Lade Braes, a medieval mill lade that meanders from west to east through the ancient city of St Andrews, Scotland.

This site was initially developed to bring people closer to the history and usage of the mills and mill lade but has since grown to encompass all aspects of the Lade Braes; the history, the walk, the flora and the fauna.

Those visiting this site are invited to contribute suggestions, information and images to further expand this growing resource. Please get in touch by using the contact form. We look forward to reading your comments and suggestions.

We would like to thank The St. Andrews Preservation Trust, The National Library of Scotland and St Andrews University Library Archive, where much of our research relating to the Lade Braes was sourced.

What is geocaching? It’s an outdoor treasure hunting game using the GPS features of your smartphone. Great for kids (of all ages), players navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the geocache (container) hidden at that location. There are currently over 2.3 million geocaches worldwide. Caches can be any size, typically from 1cm “nanos” up to boxes of about 30cm. All contain a log sheet which must be signed and most contain swappable items. By logging “finds” on the Geocaching.com web site, players can track their own progress and other players can see who has been finding the caches.

There are currently 7 geocaches along the Lade Braes Walk. To join in the game, register your details at Geocaching.com and download a smartphone app such as cGeo (Android). Happy hunting!

It’s been a few years since these map signs appeared in the Lade Braes. Can you spot the mistakes?