Mines

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The 100 mines most recently added, of 3020, newest first.

MineRegionWorkedCommodities
Spindle Point Colliery
A Fletcher family sinking with a crooked shaft and an odd name, scene of an 1847 sinking explosion and an 1867 cage accident that drowned three boys in the sump.
Greater Manchester 1847 (sinking)–June 1928 Coal
Lolly Scar Mine
One of Nidderdale's last lead mines, worked by Swaledale men brought from Old Gang and still paying its miners by the bing in the 1900s.
North Yorkshire 1866 (crosscut begun)–1910 Lead
Giants Hall Colliery
A Standish pit whose No. 1 shaft dated from the early 1800s, deepened by Wigan Coal & Iron into a 600-yard colliery that wound coal into the 1960s.
Greater Manchester Early 1800s–January 1961 Coal
Wharton Hall Colliery
A Bridgewater Trustees pit that wound coal for barely fifty years and then spent nearly four decades as a pumping station guarding its neighbours.
Greater Manchester c.1873–December 1927 (coal winding) Coal
Newtown Colliery
A Clifton pit bought by a rival company largely to control the water that threatened its own workings, and kept pumping for Agecroft for nearly thirty years after it stopped producing.
Greater Manchester c.1872–April 1961 Coal
Blaenpergwm Colliery
One of a cluster of small licensed mines high in the Rheola Forest, where pit horses were still at work around 1990.
Neath Port Talbot from 1955 Coal
Chancellorville Mine
A privately opened 1970s mine at Winton West Mains, worked under licence from the nationalised industry, and the last in Pencaitland parish to produce coal.
East Lothian July 1971–May 1979 Coal
Herm Silver Mine
A Channel Islands silver venture that lasted barely a year, launched by the promoter of Sark's silver mine on the strength of ores shown in a Guernsey office.
herm 1837–1838 Silver, Copper, Lead
Hayside Colliery
A Kilmarnock pit that made its own firebricks from the clay it raised with the coal, and ended its days pumping water for a pottery.
East Ayrshire By 1873–Early 1900s Coal, Fireclay
Levenseat Limestone Mines
Mined for lime since at least the 1830s, when ten men and three horses followed a single seven-foot bed of limestone into the hill.
West Lothian By 1837–c.1967 Limestone, Fireclay
Muldron Ironstone Pits
A scatter of Victorian ironstone pits on the West Calder moors, worked for the Coltness furnaces and now surrounded by wind turbines.
West Lothian After 1855–c.1885 Ironstone
Pottishaw Mine
One of the last West Lothian clay mines feeding Armadale's firebrick kilns, working into the 1980s under what is now an industrial estate.
West Lothian 1960–1982 Fireclay
Northrigg Colliery
A colliery sunk straight down the old shafts of the world-famous Torbanehill mineral pits, whose new pithead burned to the ground within two years.
West Lothian c.1899–1962 Coal, Fireclay
Lodge Colliery
A small Slamannan steam-coal colliery that its own owners called 'unimportant' in 1890, worked out within six years.
Falkirk Mid-1840s–1896 Coal
Mardy Colliery
The Rhymney Iron Company's own-freehold pit, closed in 1909 because its coal lay too far in, where the poet Idris Davies later worked.
Caerphilly c.1859–After 1926 Coal
Caerlan Colliery
A dozen-man naked-light drift at Tonyrefail where, in 1920, an overman struck a match in a heading just cleared of gas.
Rhondda Cynon Taf By 1900–1935 Coal
Seneley Green Colliery
A century of small workings at Seneley Green, ending in a costly NCB drift abandoned within two years as the seam thinned to a foot.
Merseyside By 1848–1951 Coal
Torbanehill Pits
The pits where the world-famous 'Torbanehill mineral' was dug, fought over in the courts as coal or not, and whose last stockpile burned for days in 1872.
West Lothian 1850–1888 Coal, Cannel Coal, Ironstone
Mosside Mine
An Airdrie mine where water from old workings drowned three men in 1939, remembered in Whinhall, and possibly Kippsbyre under another name.
North Lanarkshire — Coal
Oakerdykes Pit
A three-man family pit that was too small to nationalise, lit by carbide lamps and said to be the only gas-free mine in Scotland, which kept going until 1978.
Falkirk 1936–August 1978 Coal
Sark's Hope Silver Mine
The only metal mine in the Channel Islands to ship ore, and the venture whose debts cost the Le Pelley family the fief of Sark.
Sark 1833 (Le Pot)–1845 (mining ceased) Silver, Copper, Lead
Mosside Colliery
A Bathgate colliery whose washing plant, built in 1902, cleaned the coal of all three of Gavin Paul and Sons' collieries.
West Lothian 1878–1925 Coal
Braehead Colliery
A Fauldhouse colliery worked with electric coal cutters and conveyors by the 1940s, whose whole plant, down to 1,800 yards of sidings, was auctioned in 1944.
West Lothian c.1908–1944 Coal
Legbrannock Colliery
A Holytown colliery worked seam by seam for sixty years, from the blackband ironstone of the 1850s to the Lower Drumgray in 1919.
North Lanarkshire By 1860–After 1920 Coal, Ironstone
Skerrington Colliery
A Hurlford colliery where an 1854 firedamp explosion blew down the shaft partition and buried four men at the pit bottom.
East Ayrshire By 1854–1908 Coal
Binniehill Colliery
An early adopter of wire winding ropes, where an 1863 gunpowder blast in the joiners' shop killed a boy playing outside, and whose colliers testified against the company store in 1871.
Falkirk 1840s–1896 Coal, Ironstone
Boghead Colliery
The pits that gave the world 'Boghead coal', the oil-rich cannel at the start of the Scottish paraffin industry.
West Lothian 1848–c. 1920 Coal, Cannel Coal, Ironstone
Garrallan Colliery
A small Cumnock pit that passed through five companies and reached the House of Lords in 1924 over a bottomer's death at the shaft.
East Ayrshire c. 1907–1960 Coal, Fireclay
Knowton Colliery
A machine-mined Shotts colliery of over 450 men in 1924, whose grassed bing still stands above the fields of Knowton Farm.
North Lanarkshire By 1895–1933 Coal
Hirstrigg Colliery
A moorland colliery between Salsburgh and Shotts that employed over 300 men in 1910 and piped water to its neighbours' miners' rows.
North Lanarkshire After 1880–1943 Coal
Skellyton Colliery
A Larkhall colliery where a junior Scottish Cup winner was killed at the coal face in 1915, and an explosion killed both the manager and the fireman in 1937.
South Lanarkshire By 1864–1951 Coal, Fireclay
Champfleurie Mine
A Linlithgow shale mine that went down with the Linlithgow Oil Company in 1902, its site now a golf course.
West Lothian c. 1884–1902 Oil Shale, Coal
Cobbinshaw South No. 3 Mine
A nine-year shale mine on the Cobbinshaw moor, where a gas explosion blew out a half-built stopping and killed two men.
West Lothian 1906 or 1907–1915 Oil Shale
Dalmeny No. 2 and 3 Pits
The pits behind the Dalmeny Oil Works, now buried under an oil terminal and a Forth bridge approach road.
West Lothian c. 1871–1914 Oil Shale
Duddingston No. 1 and 2 Mines
The first completely electrified mine of the Scottish shale oil industry, linked by electric tramway to its crude oil works.
West Lothian 1900–1941 Oil Shale
Polbeth No. 26 Mine
A shale mine so steep it ran stepped steel carriages, whose engine house is now the village community centre.
West Lothian By 1911 (possibly the 1880s)–1947 Oil Shale
Allanshaw Colliery
A Hamilton pit where a father and son died in an explosion that left their locked lamps and the workings untouched.
South Lanarkshire By 1876–1942 Coal, Ironstone
Bellside Colliery
A Cleland ironstone and coal pit where a bottomer fell from a mid-landing when the cage he had called was stopped at the top.
North Lanarkshire By 1872–After 1924 Coal, Ironstone
Spindleside Colliery
A Cleland pit nicknamed 'The Midge', where a snapping crane killed the manager and the electrical engineer in 1921.
North Lanarkshire By 1865–By 1939 Coal, Ironstone
Vogrie Colliery
A Gorebridge colliery and fireclay works worked for more than a century, whose brick kilns still stand.
Midlothian By 1823–1939 Coal, Fireclay
Whistleberry Colliery
A Blantyre pit of thick coal and treacherous head coal, whose site became a brickworks.
South Lanarkshire By 1900–27 May 1935 Coal, Ironstone
Murdostoun Colliery
A Cleland colliery where a pitheadman, his electric light failed, walked into the colliery reservoir in the dark and drowned.
North Lanarkshire By 1909–1932 Coal
Garriongill Colliery
A Coltness Iron Company colliery near Overtown where donkeys hauled hutches and the general manager himself was burned by firedamp.
North Lanarkshire By 1871–1932 Coal
Dewshill Colliery
A Coltness Iron Company pit on the Shotts moors whose bings still rise beside the M8.
North Lanarkshire 1896–1943 Coal
Cornsilloch Colliery
A Larkhall coal and fireclay colliery with a shaft 196 metres deep, where two men's naked lights fired gas in 1901.
South Lanarkshire c. 1894–1937 or 1944 Coal, Fireclay
Swinhill Colliery
A Larkhall colliery where two men won the Edward Medal unscrewing an air-pipe flange to reach a fireman caught by gas in 1913.
South Lanarkshire By 1858–1942 Coal
Longriggend Colliery
A moorland colliery around Longriggend, with pits numbered to eleven, where an 1899 firedamp blast tore up the roadway.
North Lanarkshire By 1882–1953 Coal
Jerviston Colliery
One of the early Motherwell collieries, on the estate that is now Colville Park, worked by the Summerlee ironmasters.
North Lanarkshire By 1840–After 1924 Coal
Parkneuk Colliery
A Motherwell ironmasters' pit whose site became a speedway track, home of the Motherwell Eagles.
North Lanarkshire By 1909–1945 Coal
Shettleston Colliery
An east Glasgow colliery where an unearthed pump switchbox electrocuted a foreman in 1916 and gas burned five men in 1927.
Glasgow By 1862–1936 Coal
Kippsbyre Colliery
An Airdrie colliery worked for more than a century, where three men lost in a sudden flood in 1939 were never brought out.
North Lanarkshire By 1836–1955 Coal, Ironstone
Foxley Colliery
A Tollcross pit worked with power-driven coal cutters during the First World War, reached by a mineral line from Carmyle.
Glasgow By 1898–1925 Coal
Bankpark Colliery
A Tranent pit beside a fireclay works, where a winding rope rotted from inside broke in 1913 and dropped two men 46 fathoms.
East Lothian By 1852–1923 Coal
Coursington Colliery
A Motherwell colliery with its own locomotives, where boys of fourteen died at the picking tables.
North Lanarkshire By 1849–1926 Coal, Ironstone
Lochwood Colliery
The Bairds' Easterhouse colliery, whose workings yielded a fossil giant clubmoss now in Glasgow's museum collections.
Glasgow By 1880–1914 or the 1920s Coal
Daldowie Colliery
An east Glasgow pit whose site carried a greyhound track for over sixty years.
Glasgow 1877–1924 Coal
Glenesk Colliery
A short-lived Dalkeith colliery beside the old Edinburgh and Dalkeith Railway, worked for only about seven years.
Midlothian c. 1898–By 1905 Coal
Calderbank Colliery
A Baillieston pit whose subsidence felled a mansion, and whose site became Glasgow's zoo.
Glasgow By 1874–After 1929 Coal
Auchenbegg Colliery
Coalburn's first deep pit, whose abandoned coal cutter was dug up by opencast miners sixty-six years later.
South Lanarkshire 1837–1922 Coal, Ironstone
Parkhead Colliery
A Motherwell ironmasters' pit, worked for sixty-five years, whose shafts now lie under a car park and a road verge.
North Lanarkshire c. 1860–1925 Coal, Ironstone
Viewpark Colliery
An Uddingston pit where an electric coal cutter exploded in a gassy seam in 1922, burning eleven men.
North Lanarkshire By 1897–By 1942 Coal, Ironstone
Braidhurst Colliery
A Summerlee pit at Motherwell, worked from at least 1891 to 1942.
North Lanarkshire By 1891–1942 Coal
Bellfield Colliery
A Coalburn colliery whose owner died in its own pithead machinery, and which drowned in the 1921 strike.
South Lanarkshire Early 1890s–1921 Coal
Balbardie Colliery
Bathgate's long-lived gas-coal and blackband colliery, whose boilers blew up in 1895.
West Lothian 1850s–By 1946 Coal, Ironstone
Darngavil Colliery
A Greengairs colliery where one miner went down a flooding shaft alone to bring out seven men in 1920.
North Lanarkshire from By 1868 Coal, Ironstone
Westrigg Colliery
Blackridge's first colliery, whose site is now the village's railway station.
North Lanarkshire c. 1886–1930 Coal
Kirkwood Colliery
A Coatbridge colliery that ended its life stooping out old pillars, closing in 1927.
North Lanarkshire By 1884–1927 Coal
Bredisholm Colliery
A Bargeddie colliery whose pits fed the Monkland Canal by tram road and the Drumpeller Railway.
North Lanarkshire By 1853–After 1934 Coal
Wishaw Colliery
A Wishaw pit whose 1849 explosion blew both cages, and a man, out of the shaft.
North Lanarkshire from By 1836 Coal
Monkland Colliery
A Calderbank pit where a father and a workmate died digging out a buried son in 1903.
North Lanarkshire to After 1911 Coal
Haughhead Colliery
A fiery Hamilton pit where gas let out from behind a stopping killed three men in 1867.
South Lanarkshire 1860s–1886 Coal
Cleland Colliery
An estate coalfield of forty-odd numbered pits, where a crown beam gave way at the foot of No. 3 in 1862 and killed three.
North Lanarkshire from Before 1846 Coal, Ironstone
Newliston No. 29 Mine
A rich West Lothian shale mine where three rescue men in gas masks died fighting a fire in 1919.
West Lothian 1884–1937 Oil Shale
Philpstoun No. 5 Mine
A short-lived West Lothian shale mine where three young miners died in a gas explosion in 1907.
West Lothian 1898–1911 Oil Shale
Blairadam Colliery
A Kelty pit where twelve yards of 'the hardest freestone' roof fell on a coal-cutting machine in 1908.
Fife Late 1880s–By 1924 Coal
Orbiston Colliery
A Bellshill pit where three men died of white damp fighting an underground fire in 1893, one trying to save another.
North Lanarkshire By 1873–1925 Coal, Ironstone
Gavieside No. 11 Pit
One of Young's oldest and largest shale pits, where four boys and young men fell to their deaths in 1885.
West Lothian c. 1867–1901 Oil Shale, Coal
Montgomeryfield Colliery
An Ayrshire pit where a rope slipped off the drum in 1898 and four boys, two of them brothers, fell to the bottom.
North Ayrshire By 1895–By 1944 Coal
Springhill Colliery
An Ayrshire pit where a hand-turned fan stood every weekend and gas was cleared for hours before work, until it exploded in 1917.
North Ayrshire to After 1924 Coal
Drumpellier Colliery
A Coatbridge pit where gunpowder fired instead of a safety explosive set the coal dust alight in 1898.
North Lanarkshire to After 1902 Coal
Barrwood Colliery
A Kilsyth pit that burned for days in 1878 and had to be flooded with seventeen men still inside.
North Lanarkshire to By 1912 Coal, Ironstone
Edmonstone Colliery
An early Newcomen-engine colliery, where thirteen men and women entombed in 1839 crawled out through a flooded air passage.
Midlothian from Before 1725 Coal
Pentireglaze Mine
A silver-lead mine under the sea off Pentire, where miners heard ships passing overhead.
Cornwall By 1580–1857 Lead, Silver
Pednandrea Mine
A Redruth mine whose telescope-like chimney, cut down twice, still dominates the town.
Cornwall Early 18th century–1880 or 1891 Tin, Copper
Robroyston Colliery
A Glasgow pit where an overwind in 1924 threw one cage into the headgear and the other down the shaft.
Glasgow to By 1933 Coal, Ironstone
Quarrelton Colliery
Pits on one of Britain's thickest coal seams, where two men lived ten days on scraps of oatcake after a flood.
Renfrewshire from By 1634 Coal
Carbarns Colliery
A pit by a graveyard where the manager himself died trying to clear the gas.
North Lanarkshire to By 1909 Coal
Starlaw Shale Pit
The shale pit of an early West Lothian oil works, where a soot fire in the shaft killed eight.
West Lothian from c. 1867 Oil Shale
Bogles Hole Pit
An ironworks pit where a single door left open over a weekend killed a whole shift.
Glasgow — Coal
Dykehead Colliery
A shaft fire in 1861 from which volunteers hauled out twenty-eight men by hand.
South Lanarkshire — Coal
Commonhead Colliery
A pit where gas was cleared by men waving their jackets, and where seventeen died in 1850.
North Lanarkshire to By 1872 Coal
Victoria Pit, Nitshill
Said to be the deepest pit in Scotland, and the scene of one of its worst explosions.
Glasgow — Coal
Spearne Moor Mine
A St Just tin mine paying its shareholders dividends in the 1850s, one of whose engines ended up in Wales.
Cornwall from By 1855 Tin, Copper
Wheal Enys
A Porkellis tin mine whose engine house went to build the village chapel.
Cornwall By 1815–c. 1860 Tin
Wheal Luna
A St Agnes tin working first named in a record of 1528.
Cornwall from By 1528 Tin
Wheal Prudence
A copper mine that sank a shaft on a sea stack, reached across a wooden bridge.
Cornwall By 1812–1868 Copper
Droskyn Mine
Perhaps the oldest tin workings in Cornwall, with a waterwheel chamber carved out of the cliff.
Cornwall to c. 1830s Tin
Perran St George
One of Perranporth's 'two mighty mines', whose quarrel with Wheal Leisure ended in a lawsuit that shut them both.
Cornwall By 1589–1909 (Good Fortune shaft) Copper, Tin
Wheal Glynn
A Crimean War 'bubble mine' that lasted five years and left behind the most decorative chimney in East Cornwall.
Cornwall 1854–1859 Lead, Silver
Trevoole Mine
Its last owners chased a rumour of the Great Flat Lode and found nothing; the engine house they built for it still stands.
Cornwall 1825–August 1891 Copper, Tin

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