Ballochmyle Colliery

Overview

A coal colliery at Auchinleck in the Ayrshire coalfield, at work in 1880 under William Walker and still working in 1893 under William Taylor with John Whiteside as manager. It is easily lost: the Ballochmyle name today belongs overwhelmingly to the whinstone quarry, the viaduct and the Burns poem a few miles away at Mauchline, and this small pit has left almost nothing else behind.

History

Ballochmyle appears twice in the official lists of mines at work, thirteen years apart. The 1880 list of collieries at work in the United Kingdom enters it as 'Ballochmyle, Achinleck' under William Walker. The 1893 List of Mines in Scotland enters it again, as 'Ballochmyle — William Taylor, Ballochmyle Colliery, Auchinleck, R.S.O., coal', with John Whiteside as certificated manager. Between those two lines the pit changed hands; nothing else read for this record describes its working life at all. It was a small concern in a crowded coalfield. The parish of Auchinleck carried more than a dozen collieries at one time or another, and the pits that came to dominate it were the deep ones sunk by the larger companies — Highhouse and, later, the Barony, whose surviving A-frame headgear is now the memorial to Ayrshire mining. Ballochmyle is not among the names that survived.

Geology

The Ayrshire coalfield works the Carboniferous Coal Measures of the western Midland Valley of Scotland, a sequence of sandstones, mudstones and coal seams repeatedly cut by faults and, in this district, by igneous intrusions. Nothing read for this record names the seam Ballochmyle worked.

Geological setting: Sedimentary Beds and Seams (historical documentary reference)

Workings

Not established. Neither list gives employment, output or the nature of the workings, and nothing else read describes them.

Closure

No closure date has been established. The colliery was at work in 1893 and does not appear in anything read for this record thereafter.

What remains

Not established. No dated site report or photograph identifiable as this colliery has been found.

Not established. Nothing read for this record describes what survives at the site.

Nearby mines

• Highhouse Colliery — 1.0 km NE
• Barony Colliery — 2.5 km W
• Killoch Colliery — 7.1 km W
• Afton Colliery — 9.9 km SE
• Knockshinnoch Castle Colliery — 10.3 km SE

Straight-line distance, within 15 km. Show on the map.

Recorded claims

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

• The official list of collieries at work in the United Kingdom in 1880 records 'Ballochmyle, Achinleck' under William Walker. ¹
• The 1893 List of Mines in Scotland records Ballochmyle — William Taylor, Ballochmyle Colliery, Auchinleck, R.S.O. — working coal, with John Whiteside as certificated manager. ²

Sources

1. (secondary) List of coal mines UK 1880 — Coalmining History Resource Centre
2. (primary) List of Mines in Scotland, 1893 — Scottish Mining Website

Record created: 31 August 2026 · Last researched: 6 September 2026