Mines

Recently added
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The 100 mines most recently added, of 3553, newest first.

MineRegionWorkedCommodities
Philpstoun No. 7 Mine
A shale mine reached by a long drive through barren ground, which took up the shale of a failed neighbouring company.
West Lothian After 1896–1931 Oil Shale
Deans No. 5 Mine
A mine driven through barren rock to reach shale lying beneath what became the new town of Livingston.
West Lothian c. 1908–1931 Oil Shale
Roman Camp No. 5 Mine
A late shale mine whose dook followed the seam down into a trough so deep that the shale stood on end.
West Lothian 1917–1934 Oil Shale
Pumpherston No. 1 Mine
The Pumpherston Oil Company's first mine, driven right beside the retorts so its shale went straight into them.
West Lothian c. 1884–1901 Oil Shale
Cobbinshaw No. 5 Mine
A moorland shale mine tied to its oil works by a dead-straight narrow-gauge railway, abandoned and then revived with electric haulage.
West Lothian 1890–1926 Oil Shale
Cobbinshaw No. 1 and 2 Pits
The moorland shale pit where Scotland's first electric winding engine was installed.
West Lothian 1906–1926 Oil Shale
Gavieside No. 40 Mine
A West Calder shale mine on a seam up to sixteen feet thick, near the Five Sisters bings.
West Lothian About 1902–1927 Oil Shale
Philpstoun No. 6 (Whitequarries) Mine
A showcase shale mine with elegant offices, closed in 1932 and revived to work until the industry's end in 1962.
West Lothian 1909–1962 Oil Shale
Philpstoun No. 1 Mine
The shale mine that fed Philpstoun's retorts for the works' whole working life.
West Lothian 1885–1931 Oil Shale
Pumpherston No. 5 Mine
A steep Pumpherston shale mine whose site now lies partly under a golf course.
West Lothian 1899–1925 Oil Shale
Pumpherston No. 4 Mine
A shale mine whose workings spread beneath what is now eastern Livingston.
West Lothian After 1907–1927 Oil Shale
Ingliston No. 36 and 37 Pits
Shale pits whose workings now lie beneath Edinburgh Airport.
West Lothian 1897–1926 Oil Shale
Roman Camp No. 7 Mine
A wartime shale mine that fed its output by tramway into its neighbour, Roman Camp No. 6.
West Lothian 1937–1951 Oil Shale
Roman Camp No. 3 Mine
A shale mine driven through a hundred feet of volcanic rock to reach the shale beyond.
West Lothian By 1906–1938 Oil Shale
Hopetoun No. 6 (Glendevon) Mines
The largest of Young's Hopetoun shale mines, three adits fanning out under the fields west of Winchburgh.
West Lothian By 1896–1957 Oil Shale
Holmes Mine
A shale mine whose chairman promised twenty years' work in 1885; it lasted about fifteen.
West Lothian About 1884–1900 Oil Shale
Deans No. 7 Mine
A Livingston shale mine that fought thin seams, faults and water through the 1920s.
West Lothian By 1915–1931 Oil Shale
Ingliston No. 33 Pit
A Victorian shale pit that lasted barely two years, on ground now inside Edinburgh Airport.
West Lothian 1892–1894 Oil Shale
Limefield No. 32 Mine
A West Calder shale mine worked twice, once from the 1880s and again from 1900 until it ran out in 1923.
West Lothian About 1880–1923 Oil Shale
Alderstone No. 43 Mine
The last shale mine Young's sank around West Calder, whose railway viaduct outlasts the mine.
West Lothian About 1908–1921 Oil Shale
Roman Camp No. 6 Mine
A shale mine sunk in the 1930s not to create jobs but to save them, as older mines ran out.
West Lothian 1936–1956 Oil Shale
Hopetoun No. 41 Mine
A shallow shale mine dug on both sides of the Union Canal, whose subsidence still shows in the fields.
West Lothian About 1906–1927 Oil Shale
Hopetoun No. 35 Pit
A Winchburgh shale pit that worked for over sixty years and outlasted most of its neighbours.
West Lothian About 1896–1958 Oil Shale
Pentland No. 1 and 2 Mines
A steep, fiery shale mine south of Edinburgh closed not by exhaustion but by a lawsuit over the city's water.
Midlothian About 1882–1897 Oil Shale
Westwood No. 1 and 2 Pits
The last Scottish oil-shale pit to close, and the industry's showcase between the wars.
West Lothian 1915–1962 Oil Shale
Old Boston Colliery
A Haydock pit closed by a shaft fire in 1952 that then spent 37 years training miners.
Merseyside 1868–1952 Coal
Cannock Wood Colliery
A Cannock Chase pit that raised some fifty million tonnes of coal in 109 years.
Staffordshire 1864–1973 Coal, Ironstone
Brown Lees Colliery
A Biddulph pit that ended its life as the pumping shafts for its larger neighbour, Victoria.
Staffordshire By 1887–1982 Coal
Hindley Hall Colliery
A Wigan colliery whose two pits carried the names Edith and Mabel.
Lancashire 1859–1914 Coal, Fireclay
Welch Whittle Colliery
A Lancashire pit whose shafts were sunk through 110 feet of quicksand to reach the Arley mine.
Lancashire About 1855–December 1959 Coal
Farrington Colliery
A Somerset pit that worked for nearly two centuries, from the 1730s to 1923.
Somerset About 1738–1923 Coal
New Hucknall Colliery
The pit that turned Huthwaite from a village of 500 into a mining town of thousands.
Nottinghamshire 1876–February 1982 Coal
Adderley Green Colliery
A Longton pit where a single rail fallen down the shaft cost five lives in 1860.
Staffordshire by 1860 Coal
Hanley Deep Pit
North Staffordshire's deepest pit, whose spoil heaps became Central Forest Park.
Staffordshire 1854–1962 Coal
Crump Meadow Colliery
A Forest of Dean pit that took ten years to reach coal and ninety years to work it out.
Gloucestershire 1829–July 1929 Coal
Victoria Colliery, Rainford
A Rainford pit whose site became an engineering works and then an oil works that kept its railway siding until 1961.
Merseyside By 1855–after 1905 Coal
Halsnead Colliery
A Whiston colliery on a country estate, where an underground fire in 1880 defied every attempt to put it out.
Merseyside 1802–1895 Coal
Peasley Cross Colliery
A St Helens colliery where in 1871 a collier and his father died of gas thought to have come from the town's sewers.
Merseyside By 1855–1903 or 1906 Coal
Phoenix Colliery
A St Helens pit that raised 300 tons a day from a coal seam only two feet thick.
Merseyside 1873–1895 Coal
Sutton Heath Colliery
A St Helens pit where 1,500 strikers planned to march in 1881 and a crowd of 500 stoned eighty police in 1893.
Merseyside By 1858–1932 Coal
Portland Collieries, Kirkby
The Butterley Company's seven-shaft complex of 1818, the forerunner of Nottinghamshire's deep mines, whose pits were nicknamed after their managers.
Nottinghamshire About 1818–1921 Coal
Great Weeke Mine
A Chagford tin mine that three companies tried to revive in sixteen years, returning only 56 tons of tin.
Devon 1887–1903 Tin
Owlacombe Beams
A medieval tinners' gorge 1,200 feet long, recorded in 1492, with a Victorian mine sunk on the same lode beside it.
Devon By 1492–1866 Tin, Copper
Wheal Polmear
A St Austell copper mine its own miners called 'bunchy', whose rich finds never lasted, yet which sold ore for nearly a century.
Cornwall 1814–1908 Copper, Arsenic, Lead, Silver, Zinc, Pyrite
Wheal Unity, Gwennap
A Gwennap copper mine that cleared over £100,000 in six years once the Great County Adit reached it.
Cornwall By 1792–1866 Copper
Wheal Surprise
A Whitchurch Down copper mine prompted by a copper-stained gatepost, sold for £50 after the bailiffs came and refloated under a new name.
Devon About 1810–1856 Copper
Walkham United
A Walkham valley mine company that promised tin, copper and lead lodes and returned barely a ton of tin in its best two years.
Devon 1860–4 August 1882 Tin, Copper, Lead
Field Lane Colliery, Gawthorpe
A Gawthorpe pit where an inquest found that the rope lowering the engine man down the shaft had been cut on purpose.
West Yorkshire By 1849–About 1877 Coal
Hazlehead Colliery
A moorland pit beside the Hepworth Iron Company's works at Crow Edge that lasted barely a year into nationalisation.
South Yorkshire 1884–February 1948 Coal
Norley Colliery
A Pemberton pit where open lamps and firedamp killed boys of eleven to fifteen in 1852, and a fireman's unchecked shot killed eight in 1868.
Greater Manchester By 1852–1913 Coal
Lanchester Colliery
A Lanchester pit that maps showed disused by the 1890s but which came back to work drift after drift until 1950.
County Durham By 1838–1950 Coal
Glyncymmer Colliery
An Afan valley level the village called 'Goodie', run for twenty years by one manager and worked until nationalisation.
Neath Port Talbot By 1896–January 1947 Coal
Healey Lane Colliery
An Ossett pit whose founding partner was, twelve years on, working as a colliery weighman after his bankruptcy.
West Yorkshire 1876–1899 Coal
Park Lane Colliery, Ossett
A Flushdyke pit of two shafts that passed from Cliffe and Company to the Haighs of Gawthorpe.
West Yorkshire 1862–1885 Coal
New Lodge Colliery, Gawthorpe
A Gawthorpe pit whose managers were taken to court in 1874 for an explosion the inspector said could have been avoided.
West Yorkshire 1855–1889 Coal
Northfield Colliery, Ossett
A small Ossett pit of the Northfield Colliery Company, which also worked Longlands and Greatfield.
West Yorkshire 1896–1917 Coal
Ox Close Colliery
An Ossett colliery that took five years to sink and lasted three more, passing through three owners on the way.
West Yorkshire 1873–1881 Coal
Dewsbury Lane Colliery
A small Ossett pit whose colliers paid for their own sick and accident club, and in 1871 had no accidents to pay for.
West Yorkshire By 1856–1877 Coal
Old Roundwood Colliery
Ossett's largest pit, a Victorian sinking that sent its Silkstone Best out by its own railway until 1966.
West Yorkshire 1853–April 1966 Coal
Whinny Moor Colliery
A small Naylor pit on the edge of Wakefield, run in the 1890s by the same manager as their larger Pildacre Colliery.
West Yorkshire 1869–June 1913 Coal
Glenhafod Colliery
A Port Talbot drift colliery of the 1920s that worked out its seams under the National Coal Board in 1958.
Neath Port Talbot 1920s–28 November 1958 Coal
Greatfield Colliery
Westwood's Pit, a small Ossett colliery that worked on under the National Coal Board until 1954.
West Yorkshire 1913–September 1954 Coal
Wrenthorpe Colliery
A Wakefield pit that closed with its owner's death and came back under the Low Laithes company over ten times its old size.
West Yorkshire 1838–1927 Coal
Westfield Colliery
A small Ossett pit whose working through the 1893 strike set off the Chidswell riot.
West Yorkshire 1863–1908 Coal
Pildacre Colliery
An Ossett pit whose chairman told shareholders in 1893 that a man's life mattered more than a dividend, and which was drowned out in 1910.
West Yorkshire 1872–November 1910 Coal
Lepton Edge Colliery
A Kirklees pit known for raising more water than coal, whose shaft went on pumping for a quarter of a century after it closed.
West Yorkshire By 1894–August 1964 Coal
Thorny Bank Colliery
A post-war National Coal Board drift that broke output records but lasted only sixteen of its expected thirty years.
Lancashire 1950 (production August 1952)–12 July 1968 Coal
Pilsley Colliery
The pit Pilsley grew up on, remembered by two pit wheels and a plaque thanking its miners 'for the warmth and the light'.
Derbyshire 1866 or 1867–April 1957 Coal
Dearne Valley Colliery
A drift mine that outlasted most of the Dearne Valley's deep pits, working until 1991.
South Yorkshire 1900 or 1903–March 1991 Coal
Dyneley Colliery
A Cliviger drift worked for the Towneley and Deerplay companies and reopened by a private venture in the 1980s, only to be found worked out.
Lancashire Late 1800s–1987 Coal
Lochlea Colliery
One of the collieries the National Coal Board sank itself, worked for a quarter of a century near Mauchline.
South Ayrshire 1949–November 1973 Coal
Roger Mine
The last deep mine of the Kirkconnel coalfield, a post-war National Coal Board drift that worked until 1980.
Dumfries and Galloway 1952–September 1980 Coal
Cwm Glo Colliery
A 1990s private drift on Varteg Hill whose corrugated adit shed and loading gear still stand.
Torfaen 1992–1997 Coal
Glencairn Colliery
A small 1930s drift colliery near Longniddry that kept working for the National Coal Board until 1962.
East Lothian 1936–January 1962 Coal
Fortacres Colliery
A privately sunk Ayrshire pit that passed to the National Coal Board two years after nationalisation.
South Ayrshire 1924–January 1957 Coal
Oakfield Colliery
One of the Fife Coal Company's short-term wartime drift mines, open for only five years.
Fife 1944–1949 Coal
New Carterthorne Colliery
A short-lived drift beside the older Carterthorne Colliery, whose workforce grew more than fourfold between 1896 and 1900.
County Durham By 1896–April 1927 Coal
Brusselton Tower Drift
A private drift that stayed in private hands under nationalisation, leased out by the National Coal Board until 1968.
County Durham 1925–1968 Coal
Ramshawfield Drift
A small private drift in the South Tyne valley that kept working the Little Limestone coal until 1982.
Northumberland By 1937–October 1982 Coal
Bayldon Colliery
One of three small Melkridge Coal Company workings in the South Tyne valley, open only for a few years in the 1930s.
Northumberland By 1935–by 1938 Coal
Chickenley Heath Colliery
A small Dewsbury pit where electricity was killing men underground by 1901.
West Yorkshire 1855–1908 Coal
Knutton Manor Colliery
A Silverdale ironstone mine that worked the Black Band and Red Mine measures into the 1920s.
Staffordshire By 1891–February 1925 Ironstone, Coal
Ladies Lane Colliery
A Hindley colliery whose pits shared the Pennygate pumping pit with the Hindley Deep pits across the railway.
Greater Manchester 1859–1908 or 1910 Coal
Morton Colliery
The Clay Cross Company's century-long pit at Morton, whose shafts were still being pumped 25 years after it closed.
Derbyshire 1865–1965 Coal
Harwood Colliery
A short-lived post-war drift mine on a West Lothian hill, its entrances now standing among wind turbines.
West Lothian 1945 or 1946–1959 Coal
Shortheath Colliery
A Willenhall pit whose 1879 explosion put its manager before a court over a blocked ventilation gap.
West Midlands by about 1873 Coal
Mesnes Colliery
A Wigan pit worked by candlelight beside old goaves, where seven died in 1873 and the jury called for locked lamps.
Greater Manchester from before 1873 (worked for many years) Coal
Withymoor Colliery
A Black Country pit where a leaning headframe over a burning seam snapped a chain and killed eight in 1864.
West Midlands by 1864 Coal
Old Bradley Colliery
A Bilston pit where a level driven to drain flooded workings came too close beneath them in 1862.
West Midlands by 1862 Coal
Benston Colliery
The 1860 flooding that ended coal mining at Johnstone, remembered on the town's miners' cairn.
Renfrewshire By 1857–1860 Coal
Gwane Colliery
A Rowley Regis pit whose owner was told to widen its airway, did not, and lost nine men in 1857.
West Midlands by 1857 Coal, Ironstone
Sankey Brook Colliery
A St Helens pit where six fell 200 yards in 1857 down a shaft the inspector had already condemned.
Merseyside By the 1840s–About 1876 (probably) Coal
Townhouse Colliery
A Burnley-area pit where an unlocked lamp in 1850 and an unsupervised squib in 1856 each cost several lives.
Lancashire by 1850 Coal
Heathfield Colliery, Wolverhampton
A Wolverhampton pit whose 1848 explosion, killing sixteen, ended in a manslaughter verdict against the doggy.
West Midlands by 1848 Coal
Ravenslodge Colliery
A Dewsbury pit drowned in minutes in 1892 when a flawed cast-iron tubbing segment burst in the shaft.
West Yorkshire by 1892 Coal
Hall End Colliery, West Bromwich
A West Bromwich pit whose 1884 fire at naked candles fed calls to make safety lamps compulsory in gassy seams.
West Midlands by 1884 Coal
Titford Long Meadow Colliery
An Oldbury pit where five men died in 1874 from breathing superheated air, with no burn on any of them.
West Midlands — Coal
Westburn Colliery
A Cambuslang pit where pumping out a flood released the gas that killed a roadsman in 1903.
South Lanarkshire By 1886–February 1905 Coal, Fireclay
Caroline Wheal Prosper
A Buckfastleigh tin mine on which over £8,000 was spent, with 'remarkable recklessness', for one sample of tin.
Devon 1854–1857 Tin
Conistone Moor Mines
A two-mile belt of Wharfedale lead veins pocked with shafts from the 1700s to the failed company ventures of the 1860s.
North Yorkshire 18th century–1872 Lead

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