Bannockburn Colliery

Overview

Bannockburn Colliery, sunk at Cowie near Stirling and taken over by the Alloa Coal Company in 1894, turned a farming hamlet into an industrial community of over 3,000 people within thirty years, and gave its name to an award-winning colliery silver band still remembered at Stirling's Smith Art Gallery and Museum today.

History

Before 1894 Cowie was little more than a scatter of cottages and farmland. That year the Alloa Coal Company, formed in 1835, took over the Bannockburn pit from the Carron Company and began fifteen years of rapid growth: a church, a school, a bowling green, a brass band and a pipe band all followed by 1909. Workers were drafted in from surrounding towns, and by 1924 the village's population had passed 3,000. The Alloa Coal Company built miners' rows to house them — Murray Row and Mitchell Row first, with ten more added within a decade, as Ordnance Survey maps of 1896 and 1914 record. Employment fluctuated sharply over the colliery's life: from 106 workers in 1894 it grew to a recorded peak of 1,398 in 1910, before contracting through the 1920s and 30s to a few hundred, where it stayed for the rest of its working life (487 in 1947, the year of nationalisation). Output was mainly household, steam and gas coal, with coking coal added from around 1900; in 1947 the colliery produced 153,000 tons. Company housing plans from 1904 show an improvement on the earliest rows — a two-family building with kitchen and scullery on the ground floor and a bedroom above — but overcrowding and poor drainage remained a problem regardless: in 1912 the Central District Committee recorded an outbreak of enteric fever in the village blamed on the 'absence of a proper water carriage system of sewage disposal', and there were still no colliery baths until 1931. Bannockburn Colliery closed in 1953, though a drift mine on the site continued working the Upper Hirst seam until 1963.

Geology

Coal of the Stirling field; the Upper Hirst seam was still being worked by a drift mine on the site after the colliery itself closed.

Workings

A shaft pit, with a drift mine on the same site working the Upper Hirst seam after the colliery itself closed.

Closure

Closed in 1953, though a drift mine on the site went on working the Upper Hirst seam until 1963. The miners' rows were demolished not long afterwards.

What remains

The miners' rows were demolished not long after the colliery closed, and Cowie looks very different today from its mining-era appearance; the housing plans and Ordnance Survey maps documenting the vanished rows survive in the Stirling Council Archives collection.

Related mines

• Carronhall Colliery — Bannockburn is named with Carronhall among the last collieries the Carron Company operated, though this archive's own Carron Company operator record says Bannockburn was sold to the Alloa Coal Company in 1894 — a disagreement noted on both records.
• Craigrie Colliery — Both worked by the Alloa Coal Company.
• Pirnhall Colliery — Both Carron Company pits; Pirnhall's dross was washed at Bannockburn and the two shared an electricity supply.
• Tillicoultry Colliery — Both worked by the Alloa Coal Company.

Recorded claims

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

• The Alloa Coal Company (formed 1835) took over the Bannockburn pit from the Carron Company in 1894. ¹
• Recorded employment at Bannockburn Colliery rose from 106 in 1894 to a peak of 1,398 in 1910, then fell sharply through the 1920s and 30s to a few hundred, where it stayed for the rest of the colliery's working life (487 in 1947); output was mainly household, steam and gas coal, with coking coal added from around 1900, reaching 153,000 tons in 1947. ²
• The miners' rows built to house the workforce were demolished soon after the colliery closed. ¹

Sources

1. (secondary) Cowie Pit Houses – Alloa Coal Company — Stirling Council Archives
2. (primary) Durham Mining Museum: Bannockburn Colliery (UK) — Durham Mining Museum

Record created: 27 August 2026 · Last researched: 29 August 2026