Benbain Colliery

Overview

Benbain was a Dalmellington Iron Company pit high in the Doon valley, thirteen miles south-east of Ayr. For thirty years it was tiny: nine people in 1894, seven in 1896, fifteen in 1900 and still only thirty-one in 1920 — a scale that suggests a working kept open for the company's own furnaces rather than a colliery in its own right. Then it grew, to 112 people in 1923, and by 1937 was returned as two pits, the No. 4 and the No. 5, with 127 between them. It passed with the rest of the Dalmellington business to Bairds and Dalmellington Ltd.

History

The Dalmellington Iron Company worked Benbain from at least 1894, when the Lists of Mines return nine people, seven of them below ground, raising household coal. The figures stay very small for a generation: seven in 1896, fifteen in 1900, twenty-three in 1905, twenty-nine in 1910, twenty-eight in 1915 and thirty-one in 1920, with the product shifting from household to manufacturing coal in 1905 and back to both by 1915. Then the scale changes: 112 people in 1923, and by 1937 the colliery is returned as two pits, the No. 4 with ninety-five and the No. 5 with thirty-two. The Dalmellington Iron Company was the making of the Doon valley. Its furnaces at Waterside drew on a ring of pits in the surrounding hills, and Benbain is one of them; the company merged into Bairds and Dalmellington Ltd in 1931, and the pits passed with it.

Geology

Benbain worked the coals of the Doon valley on the southern edge of the Ayrshire coalfield, the ground that supplied the Dalmellington Iron Company's furnaces with both coal and blackband ironstone. The measures here lie in high moorland country, much of which has since been taken by opencast.

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

Workings

Small for most of its life and worked as a single return until the 1920s, then as two pits, the No. 4 and the No. 5, by 1937.

Closure

The closure date is not known. The colliery was still returned as two pits in 1937. The ground around Benbain has since been forested and opencast, and an opencast lake lies near the site.

What remains

The site is in forestry above the Beoch Lane, crossed by forest tracks and a power line, with an opencast lake nearby; the remains of the Benbain rifle range survive in the same ground.

The site is under forestry crossed by tracks and a power line; no colliery structure is recorded.

Related mines

• Beoch Colliery — Neighbouring Dalmellington Iron Company workings: Canmore gives Beoch No. 4 the alternative name Benbain No. 5 Mine, and the two records may overlap.

What's uncertain

Points where sources disagree or the record could not be settled; both accounts are kept. All open questions in the archive.

• The BGS mine-plans catalogue holds a Mining Remediation Authority abandonment plan titled 'Benbain' (catalogue 7951, Sloanston, High, Splint And Low, dated 1924); the catalogue gives no location and the plan's details do not clearly tie it to this working, so it may belong to another of the same name. (uncertain) ²

Recorded claims

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

• The colliery employed nine people in 1894 and thirty-one in 1920, then 112 in 1923; by 1937 it was returned as two pits, the No. 4 with ninety-five people and the No. 5 with thirty-two. ¹
• Benbain was worked by the Dalmellington Iron Co., later the Dalmellington Iron Co. Ltd, and then by Bairds and Dalmellington Ltd. ¹
• The colliery raised household coal in the 1890s, manufacturing coal from 1905, and both by 1915. ¹
• The BGS mine-plans catalogue holds a Mining Remediation Authority abandonment plan titled 'Benbain' (catalogue 7951, Sloanston, High, Splint And Low, dated 1924); the catalogue gives no location and the plan's details do not clearly tie it to this working, so it may belong to another of the same name. (uncertain) ²

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (primary) Durham Mining Museum: Benbain Colliery — Durham Mining Museum, from the Lists of Mines
2. (primary) BGS / Mining Remediation Authority mine plans: BENBAIN — British Geological Survey / Mining Remediation Authority
3. (secondary) Dalmellington — Wikipedia

Record created: 10 September 2026 · Last researched: 10 September 2026