Grimond’s manufacturing innovation was significant, …”he cut it into lengths, heckled it, span the line into 3lb yarn, the quality of which was excellent”. From this time jute was spun extensively by spinning firms in Blairgowrie and Dundee.

The jute was softened with whale oil; cut into lengths, heckled, where the fibres were drawn into straight, tangle-free lengths; spun into 3-lb yarn; and mixed with tow for the weft of osnaburg (a coarse, plain fabric) and hessian sheeting. The jute was a fine fibre and this tradition of producing fine jute threads was carried on in Blairgowrie through into the 1940s.

In 1843 there were  71  people employed  in  the mill (35 men  and  36 women).

Oakbank  was  burned down  in  1872  (the fire arising from a gas jet igniting some of the tow), and  the  number of  employees  thrown idle  was  170.  The  mill  was soon  rebuilt  and, but  for  a temporary  stoppage  from 1904 – 05,  Oakbank  continued to  work  until 1930.   Like  the other  3  mills owned  by  the Grimond  family,  Oakbank was  driven  entirely by  water  power.

The building has suffered substantial damage in the intervening years although plans for developing it as a music recording studio led to a large renovation project being undertaken some twenty years ago although not completed. The mill was recently [2013] sold again to a private investor who has plans to turn it into a riverside residence.

Although in a badly decayed state, the breast-shot water wheel (3.05m wide and 5.49m diameter) has survived in situ, having been exposed as a result of the collapse of the water-wheel-house roof. Also surviving on the outside of the mill is a vertical cast-iron line shaft with gearing which took power from the water wheel to each mill flat.

To  the  south of  the  mill, along  the  edge of  the  river at  the  Keith Falls,  can  be seen  a  deep channel  cut  through solid  Old  Red Sandstone  Rock.    This seems  to  have been  intended  as the  lade  for another, larger  mill  at the  Falls  which was  planned  to be  built,  as a  rival  most probably  to  the new  Keathbank  Mill  (built  in  the late  1860s )  on the  other  side of  the  river.  This  project  came to  nothing  even though  the site  would have  been  by  far the  most  ideal on  the  whole river. The stone accumulated for the proposed building project can be seen, covered in moss and saplings, by the riverside.

Oakbank Mill and nearby the large, imposing Oakbank House (built 1835-40) were the property of the Grimond family until after WWII when bought by the Thomson family.