Braehead Colliery

Overview

A two-pit colliery on the Fauldhouse Hills, sunk before 1910 and worked by the Hirst Coal Company and then Barr and Thornton. It employed over 200 in 1944 and was abandoned that year, its plant sold at auction in December 1944.

History

Braehead Colliery lay on the south-west side of the Fauldhouse Hills, in Whitburn parish, with two pits sunk before 1910 and linked to the railway by mineral lines and a tramway. Barr and Thornton, the Fauldhouse coalmasters, are recorded as working it from about 1908; the Hirst Coal Company is named as owner of No. 1 pit at accidents in 1912 and 1919, when a bottomer and a pitheadman fell down the shaft.

Barr and Thornton owned the colliery by 1929. That year a pit joiner lost an eye when a log sprang back from a circular saw, in 1930 a miner died after a fall of stone, and in 1939 a pit bottomer was crushed by an ascending cage. The 1944 Colliery Year Book gave Braehead 164 underground and 49 surface workers under the manager James McComb.

The colliery was abandoned in 1944. On 5 and 6 December Shirlaw, Allan and Co. auctioned its plant on site: a dross washer and coal-picking tables, two Lancashire boilers, a 300-kilowatt generating set, coal cutters, shaker conveyors and gate-end loaders, coupled winding engines and 1,807 yards of railway sidings.

Geology

Unknown.

Workings

No. 1 and No. 2 pits, both on the OS 6-inch map of 1921, with mineral railways and a tramway to the main line; by the 1940s electrically worked with DC coal cutters, shaker conveyors, a belt face conveyor and main-and-tail and endless-rope haulages, and a dross-washing and coal-cleaning plant at the surface.

Closure

Abandoned in 1944; the plant, buildings and sidings were sold by auction on 5-6 December 1944.

What remains

The bing has been partly quarried and the ground has subsided at the site of the pit shaft.

Spoil heaps, visible on aerial photographs, and the line of the mineral railway.

Redevelopment

Unknown.

What's uncertain

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

• Barr and Thornton worked Braehead Colliery from about 1908 until 1944. (uncertain) ¹

Recorded claims

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

• Barr and Thornton worked Braehead Colliery from about 1908 until 1944. (uncertain) ¹
• The Hirst Coal Company owned Braehead No. 1 pit in 1912 and 1919. ^2,3
• In 1944 Braehead, Fauldhouse, employed 164 underground and 49 surface workers; the manager was James McComb. ¹
• Braehead Colliery was abandoned in 1944 and its plant sold by auction by Shirlaw, Allan and Co. on 5-6 December 1944. ^4,5
• Braehead Colliery Pits Nos. 1 and 2 first appear on the OS 6-inch map of 1921, joined to the railway by mineral lines and a tramway. ⁶
• In July 1939 a pit bottomer at Braehead Colliery was crushed by an ascending cage; the owners were Barr and Thornton. ⁷

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Scottish Shale: Barr & Thornton Ltd — Scottish Shale (Museum of the Scottish Shale Oil Industry, Almond Valley Heritage Trust)
2. (primary) NMRS Coal Mining Accidents and Deaths: Braehead, No.1 Pit, 1912 — Northern Mine Research Society
3. (primary) NMRS Coal Mining Accidents and Deaths: Braehead, No.1 Pit, 1919 — Northern Mine Research Society
4. (primary) University of Glasgow Archives: DC102 Records of Shirlaw Allan, industrial auctioneers, Hamilton (item list) — University of Glasgow Archives
5. (secondary) Scottish Shale: Braehead No. 1 pit — Scottish Shale (Museum of the Scottish Shale Oil Industry, Almond Valley Heritage Trust)
6. (secondary) Canmore: Braehead Colliery, Pit No.1 (NS96SW 63) — Historic Environment Scotland (trove.scot / Canmore)
7. (primary) NMRS Coal Mining Accidents and Deaths: Braehead, 1939 — Northern Mine Research Society
8. (observational) Geograph 6896910: Waste heap: Braehead Colliery — Geograph
9. (primary) NMRS Coal Mining Accidents and Deaths: Braehead, 1929 — Northern Mine Research Society
10. (primary) NMRS Coal Mining Accidents and Deaths: Braehead, 1930 — Northern Mine Research Society
11. (secondary) Accidents 1921-1930 — Scottish Mining Website

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