The Stornoway Mill was constructed in 1816 and was fitted with the best equipment available at that time, according to contemporary reports. It seems to have been one of three mills built by the Mackenzie owners of Lewis in the early 19th Century. According to the New Statistical Account of Ross and Cromarty, compiled about 1830, there was also a wool carding mill and a sawmill with "an excellent kiln appended to it." All were "perfectly complete in their kind" says the New Statistical Account. Also brand new at that time was a distillery which is believed to have stood where the Woodland Centre now is.
In a letter dated 27 August 1817, Lady Seaforth states: "but for a corn mill, which was erected by my father only last Autumn, with the latest improved machinery, not one single grain of these oats could have been converted on the island into meal, every mill on it heretofore being wretched hovels."
