Bellside Colliery

Overview

A colliery at Bellside, Cleland, working the coal and the Bellside ironstone from at least the 1870s. United Collieries had it in 1904, when a bottomer fell down the shaft from a mid-landing, and the Auchinlea Coal Company in the 1910s and 1920s.

History

Bellside Colliery worked the coal and the Bellside ironstone at Bellside, Cleland. Its Virtuewell workings were abandoned in 1872 and 1889, the Virtuewell with the Bellside ironstone in 1891, the Upper and Mid Drumgray in 1904, and the Kiltongue and Mid Drumgray in 1913.

In 1904 the colliery belonged to United Collieries Ltd. Its shaft had a mid-working 19.5 fathoms below the surface and 11 fathoms above the pit bottom. That April the bottomer there, Thomas Jack, aged 61, had signalled for the cage to be raised to the mid landing; the engineman stopped the descending cage at the surface to load props, and Jack, hearing the safety gate at the pithead fall to the plates, opened the gate at the mid landing, pushed a tub forward and fell with it down the shaft, dying six hours later.

By 1917 the Auchinlea Coal Co. Ltd owned it. In August 1917 a stone of about 27 cwt fell from the roof and crushed a coal-cutting machineman against his machine. In April 1924 the under-manager, Alec Baird, crawling along the coal face when a charge of gelignite was fired nearby, was knocked unconscious and died in Glasgow Royal Infirmary, supposedly of the shock of thinking a fall of coal had come down on him.

Geology

The Virtuewell, Kiltongue and Upper and Mid Drumgray coals and the Bellside ironstone.

Workings

A shaft with a mid-working and safety gates at the landings, and coal-cutting machines at the face by 1917.

Closure

Unknown. Its Kiltongue and Mid Drumgray workings were abandoned in 1913; the last recorded death is of 1924.

What remains

Unknown.

Redevelopment

Unknown.

Recorded claims

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

• In April 1904 the bottomer at a mid-working 19.5 fathoms down fell down the shaft with a tub when the cage he had called was stopped at the surface. ¹
• In August 1917 a stone of about 27 cwt fell from the roof and crushed a coal-cutting machineman against his machine. ^2,3
• In April 1924 the under-manager died after being knocked unconscious when a gelignite shot was fired near him at the face. ^2,4
• Bellside Colliery belonged to United Collieries Ltd in 1904 and to the Auchinlea Coal Co. Ltd in 1917-1924. ^1,3,4
• Virtuewell and Bellside ironstone workings at Bellside were abandoned in 1891. ⁵

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (primary) NMRS Coal Mining Accidents and Deaths: Bellside, 1904 — Northern Mine Research Society
2. (primary) Shotts parish accidents post 1900 — Scottish Mining Website — Scottish Mining Website
3. (primary) NMRS Coal Mining Accidents and Deaths: Bellside, 1917 — Northern Mine Research Society
4. (primary) NMRS Coal Mining Accidents and Deaths: Bellside, 1924 — Northern Mine Research Society
5. (primary) BGS / Mining Remediation Authority mine plan: Bellside, Virtuewell and Bellside ironstone, abandoned 1891 — British Geological Survey
6. (primary) BGS / Mining Remediation Authority mine plan: Bellside, Kiltongue, abandoned 1913 — British Geological Survey
7. (primary) BGS / Mining Remediation Authority mine plan: Bellside, Virtuewell, abandoned 1872 — British Geological Survey

Record created: 16 October 2026 · Last researched: 16 October 2026