Bailliesmuir Colliery

Overview

A Coltness Iron Company mine at Newmains, working the Drumgray coals for gas, manufacturing and steam coal with up to about 200 men from the 1890s to the 1930s.

History

Bailliesmuir lay at Newmains, among the collieries of the Coltness Iron Company, which worked it for household, manufacturing and steam coal and from 1900 for gas coal as well. It was a small working in the 1890s, with 61 men in 1894 and 65 in 1896, and an abandonment plan of earlier Bailliesmuir workings is dated 1899. By 1905 it employed 147 men in the Mid Drumgray seam, and by 1910, now in the Lower Drumgray too, 195.

The housing inquiry of 1910 recorded Bailliesmuir Mine with 161 men underground and 22 at the surface. Only 17 lived in company houses, at Newmains, Cambusnethan and Waterloo; most rented houses in Newmains and Cambusnethan. Its recorded deaths were falls of stone at the face and one shot-firing accident: in August 1909 a brusher, Patrick Rafferty, went back towards the face believing all three shots had fired, and was killed by flying debris when one that had hung fire went off; in 1913 a miner of 17 was killed by a slab of rock thirteen feet long that fell without warning over several props. The mine employed about 200 men through the 1920s and 1930s, and abandonment plans of its workings are dated 1919, 1924 and 1933.

Geology

The Mid and Lower Drumgray coals.

Workings

Longwall faces with holing and shot-firing in the brushing.

Closure

It employed 196 men in 1940; when it closed is unknown. The latest abandonment plans are dated 1933.

What remains

Unknown.

Related mines

• Collyshot Colliery — Coltness Iron Company mines at Newmains, listed together in the 1910 housing returns.
• Glenclelland Colliery — Neighbouring Coltness Iron Company pits at Newmains.
• Herdshill Colliery — Coltness Iron Company mines at Newmains, listed together in the 1910 housing returns.
• Stonecraigs Colliery — Coltness Iron Company pits at Newmains.

Recorded claims

Individual factual claims, each attached to the source(s) that support it below. Where sources disagree, both are kept.

• Bailliesmuir, Newmains, belonged to the Coltness Iron Co. Ltd. ^1,2
• Bailliesmuir employed 61 men in 1894, 195 in 1910 and 205 in 1923. ²
• In 1910 Bailliesmuir Mine had 161 men underground and 22 above, most in rented houses at Newmains and Cambusnethan. ¹
• In August 1909 a brusher was killed at Bailliesmuir by a shot that had hung fire as he returned to the face. ²
• Abandonment plans of Bailliesmuir workings are dated 1899 and 1933. ^3,4

Sources

1. (secondary) 1910 Housing (Lanarkshire, Cambusnethan and Dalziel parishes) — Scottish Mining Website
2. (primary) Bailliesmuir Colliery — Durham Mining Museum
3. (primary) BGS / Mining Remediation Authority mine plan 21907876: Bailliesmuir, abandoned 1899 — British Geological Survey
4. (primary) BGS / Mining Remediation Authority mine plan 21944500: Bailliesmuir, abandoned 1933 — British Geological Survey

Record created: 21 October 2026 · Last researched: 21 October 2026