Few who pass through, however, might even notice its working tweed mill, where the clatter of the German-made Dornier electric-powered looms have gone about their business for generations.
Glenlyon Mill has produced tweed for estates and royals (Image: Glenlyon Mill)
Within its thick grey stone walls is a rich story of Scottish textile history and the Highland estates it has served, as rattling looms gobble up fine threads of spun yarn to create rich tweed patterns inspired by the rugged beauty of the landscape.
Its tweed has gone on to become hunting jackets, gun sleeves and cartridge bags, plus 2s and plus 4s, coats and caps favoured by gentry and royals.
Established in 1850 by P. and J. Haggart, for decades the mill’s main customers have been hundreds of Scottish estates, each with their unique patterns and colours that reflect their landscapes and histories.
Now, though, Glenlyon Mill is preparing to emerge from a world of countryside pursuits for a new phase in its long history.
One of Glenlyon Mill’s four Dornier electric looms (Image: Glenlyon Mill)
Riding on a wave of soaring interest in Scottish textiles, the Aberfeldy mill has new owners with a modern outlook and ambitious plans to inject fresh life into the 170-year-old business.
Their vision will take Glenlyon mill into a new age of tweed production and a fresh venture as a visitor attraction to complement Aberfeldy’s distillery, its birks and falls and the Tay.
Currently closed to visitors while the building undergoes renovations – the looms, however, remain hard at work – when it opens to the public in Spring there will be guided tours and a showroom where they can learn more about the weaving process.
Glenlyon Mill tweed patterns and designs tell a story of landscape and estate owners (Image: Glenlyon Mill)
To ensure its electric looms keep working well into the future and to breathe fresh skills into Scotland’s textile sector, there are plans to create opportunities for weaving apprenticeships.
Having worked away quietly in the background busily supplying private estates, luxury clientele and royal patrons, this new era is will be accompanied by vibrant new designs and bespoke tweeds for modern customers anxious to also have their own cloth.
The mill’s rebirth is part of a Scottish textiles renaissance that has seen growing interest from consumers, fashion designers, makers and tourists.
Demand for new tartan has surged in recent years: more than 2,200 tartan designs have been lodged with Scottish Register of Tartans in the past five years, including 426 this year.
Tweed production at Glenlyon Mill (Image: Glenlyon Mill)
They include designs inspired by Harry Potter characters, some created for weddings, businesses and fashion designers and others for more poignant reasons. One is dedicated to Edinburgh firefighter Barry Martin who lost his life four days after attending a fire at the city’s former Jenners store.
Weaving courses and workshops are often fully booked months in advance – so too are knitting and crochet retreats and craft-based holidays.
One in September next year costs £1800 and takes knitters around Shetland for a series of workshops and studio visits, while Shetland Wool Week sparks a dash among visitors to book accommodation more than a year in advance.
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In the Borders, where woollen and tweed mills supply some of the world’s major fashion houses, some are considering new visitor centres explaining their processes, and showrooms as part of a push to encourage tourism and meet demand from visitors to see first-hand how garments are made.
Hundreds of tweed patterns are stored at Glenlyon Mill (Image: Glenlyon Mill)
While across the country is a rising number of small but passionate wool and yarn producers devoted to nurturing heritage breeds and offering farmers and crofters fair prices for fleece that might otherwise go to landfill.
According to the Glenlyon mill’s new director, tweed and tartan specialist Vixy Rae, a fashion designer whose background lies in streetwear, there is a new breed of customer seeking to invest in traditional Scottish cloth that tells their personal story.
“People are interested in creating their own tweed and to design their own cloth that represents their family or something that’s important to them,” she says.
Glenlyon Mill’s electric Dornier looms (Image: Glenlyon Mill)
“For example, they might have a white labrador and a black labrador and they want black and white tweed to represent them.
“There’s also demand from international customers and constant demand from rural estates.
“Some have traditional estate tweeds but now want new ones because the estate has been bought over. They want new colours that reflect the owners or the change in the landscape.
“There’s real demand out there for tweed,” she adds, “and we’re interested in keeping the looms clicking, making tweed accessible so everyone can wear it.”
Propelled from the shooting estate and into the world of haute couture in the 1920s by Coco Chanel, Scottish tweed has never entirely gone out of fashion.
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Harris Tweed – the only fabric protected by law – was championed by Vivienne Westwood from the mid-1970s, and this summer it featured heavily in Maria Grazia Chiuri’s Chanel Cruise 2025 collection unveiled at Drummond Castle.
High street brands including Marks & Spencer and Zara added tweed-style garments in recent collections.
For customers with deeper pockets, Scottish-made tweed coats and jackets feature among Holland Cooper and Margaret Howell collections.
One of Glenlyon Mill’s four Dornier electric looms (Image: Glenlyon Mill)
The trend for tweed has crossed into sportswear: in summer, Adidas unveiled a Harris Tweed version of its Samba trainers.
And more recently, niche East London clothes brand, Paynter, which produces limited made to order garments, showcased Harris Tweed for its latest drop of jackets and coats.
Their artfully produced campaign focused on the journey from landscape and sheep to one young Harris Tweed weaver’s pedal powered loom and her story of learning the skill from her relatives. The batch sold out almost immediately.
Sport brand Adidas launched a Harris Tweed version of its Samba trainers (Image: Adidas)
While a clear sign that tweed is doing well comes from Harris Tweed Hebrides, where the latest trading figures shows turnover for the year ending December 2023 hit £9.1million, with a £1.3 million profit.
But it’s more than a rise in demand from customers wanting to own a tweed garment.
According to Vixy and others in the textiles sector, there is mounting interest from people who want to see how it’s made and experience the sights and sounds of a working mill.
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“There is growing interest in weaving and different crafts, and while we don’t have the romantic Hattersley looms – ours are electric German Dornier looms – people still want to see the story behind the garment,” she says.
“They want to know the process, from the sheep’s back to their wardrobe.
“Tweed has so much art and story behind it and customers are invested in it.”
Vixy Rae is Glenlyon’s new Creative Director (Image: Glenlyon Mill)
At Skye Weavers, Roger and Andrea Holden are among a newer wave of producers who cater to visitors who want to see the process in action.
Their weavers’ shed is located at the end of a path off the road to Neist Point. Inside, their two pedal-powered looms produce a variety of woollen products including scarves and blankets, and tweed to be sold as lengths and made into garments, cushion covers, bags and accessories.
Roger says the business is as much about tourism as textiles: “We’re essentially a tourism business – 80% of our sales come from the people who visit us,” he says. “Most are on holiday; a lot are American and European.
“There’s a booming interest in finding out more about how things are made and the process of production. People want to know more about weaving, they come and see the bicycle looms and they can have a go.
“It’s a strong selling point for us.
“People know incredibly little about tweed apart from the name and they are fascinated to find out more.”
Their looms are the same as the ones used by Harris Tweed weavers; a blanket can be rattled out within around half an hour of weaving but setting them up takes much longer as does the finishing processes of ‘waulking’ completed using mechanical agitators at a specialist mill in Galashiels.
The couple were inspired to set up Skye Weavers in 2012 after living and working at Ardalanish, the organic farm and weaving mill on Mull.
Tweed production at Glenlyon Mill, Aberfeldy (Image: Glenlyon Mill)
Niche ventures at the time, the island weavers are now accompanied by dozens of small artisan weavers across Scotland.
Such as in Stirling, where Radical Weavers is a social enterprise using weaving to help people who are socially isolated or have experienced loss or trauma.
And in Duns, where artisan weaver Janis Embleton runs taster days and weaving workshops.
She sees a rise in the number of people wanting to learn, however warns the costs of buying their own weaving equipment can be a stumbling block for some seeking to take their hobby further.
Tweed made by Duns weaver Janis Embleton (Image: Rebecca Friedland)
“I have had students wanting to do it professionally but it is far more difficult than it appears and takes a long time to become truly proficient,” she says.
“Many of my students go on to buy their own looms but cost can be prohibitive – even a fairly simple loom with its associated accessories can cost quite a few hundred pounds and the cost of yarn can be expensive too.
“However, I have definitely seen an increase in student numbers and have had many returning students.”
Scarves made by Duns weaver Janis Embleton (Image: Janis Embleton)
An apprenticeship scheme at Glenlyon Mill would be “good news” she adds, as would a visitor attraction that explains the weaving process.
“I often demonstrate at events and find that when people are able to see the process for themselves, it makes for better understanding.
“If there was a better understanding of the process, people could begin to appreciate that good quality fabric is valuable and we should be moving towards caring for and preserving our clothes and accessories instead of following a trend to buy one day, discard the next.”
Glenlyon Mill has produced tweed for rural estates and bespoke customers since 1850 (Image: Glenlyon Mill)
At Glenlyon Mill, meanwhile, there is a rich story to share with visitors. Its roots stretch to 1801 when James Haggart founded the firm in Acharn and began spinning local wool, weaving cloth and tailoring it into clothing.
His sons, Peter and James, took over the purpose-built Aberfeldy mill in 1850, harnessing the energy of the nearby burn to power the looms
Its tweeds received royal patronage: at one time they held as many as seven different Royal warrants in a 100-year period.
Now controlled by the parent company that oversees Edinburgh-based tweed, tartan and tailoring specialists Stewart Christie & Co, it has its first trainee in decades.
Isaac Hawkins is Glenlyon Mill’s first apprentice for more than a generation (Image: Fran Mart)
Isaac Hawkins studied kiltmaking during lockdown. Now as Glenlyon’s mill hand he is learning how to operate the looms from current Head of Weaving Operations, Gordon Hermiston, in his 42nd year at the mill.
When Gordon first arrived as a 15-year-old, visiting a mill to see noisy machines at work for leisure would have been low on the list of things Aberfeldy visitors might care to do.
Soon, a key element of Isaac’s role will be showing visitors precisely that.
Preparing yarn for tweed production at Glenlyon Mill (Image: Glenlyon Mill)
“A lot of people see the end result but don’t fully appreciate how much technical skill is involved; the carding, spinning, dying and weaving,” he says.
“There’s a shift to ‘considered consumerism’, understanding the place and people involved in making something.
“Having mills running and people being able to see things being made, helps get it into their head.”