The mill was built by John Hepburn, sometime after he became Prior in 1483. The Priory granted it to St Leonards College (along with Goukston Mill) at the college’s founding in 1513. The college feued the mill to Henry Cairns in 1566 and in 1596 his son John sold the mill to the Burgh of St Andrews, along with Abbey Mill and Shore Mill. Abbey Mill, the Shore Mill, Craig Mill and the windmill (near present day City Road) were collectively known as the “common mills” of St Andrews. Craig Mill is described as a ruin in 1660 and by 1776 it had been demolished.
This mill may also have been known as Gaupys Mill (in Scots, “Gapeis”), which is mentioned as a property boundary in 1615, but Gaupys Mill may have been a different mill altogether. Gaupyshade seems to have been another name for the shade (parcel of land) called “the head of the Bassaguard”; Bassaguard is on the south side of the Kinness Burn where the Botanic Gardens are.
- R N Smart; “Notes on the Water Mills of St Andrews” (1989) in “Three Decades of Historical Notes” (ed. M Innes & J Whelan, 1991)
- “Foundation charter of St Leonard’s College” (1513) online at St Andrews University Archives
- “Contract selling Abbey and Craig watermills to the burgh, St Andrews” (1596) online at St Andrews University Archives
- “Instrument of Sasine narrating that John Schewes (Schiwes) resigned in the hands of Mr William Russell part of the mill within the monastery of St Andrews” (1600) online at St Andrews University Archives
- “Contract between the town of St Andrews and St Leonard’s College concerning land in Rathelpie” (1615) online at St Andrews University Archives
- “Shade” online at Dictionary of the Scots Language
- “Disposition and precept of sasine on land in Greigstaves, St Andrews” (1793) online at St Andrews University Archives
- “St Andrews Botanic Gardens” online at Botanic Gardens Conservation International
- Location unknown