Cadder Colliery

Overview

The Carron Company's pits at Mavis Valley on the bank of the Forth and Clyde Canal, worked for coal and ironstone to feed the ironworks at Falkirk. On a Sunday evening in August 1913 a fire broke out in No. 15 pit and twenty-two of the twenty-six men underground died.

History

Cadder belonged to the Carron Company of Falkirk, the ironworks that had been casting since 1759 and that took coal and blackband ironstone from its own pits to feed its furnaces. The colliery stood on the north bank of the Forth and Clyde Canal about four miles north-east of Glasgow, and its rows at Mavis Valley housed the men who worked it. Employment ran from 302 in 1894 up to 707 by 1900 and then down again, with 416 across Nos. 2, 15 and 17 by 1923; the pits worked the Main and Virgin coals and Main and blackband ironstone. On the evening of Sunday 3 August 1913 fire broke out in No. 15 pit while the back shift was underground. Twenty-two of the twenty-six men down the pit died, most of them from the smoke and gas rather than the flames (see Disasters, below). Fifty thousand people lined the route of the funerals in Glasgow three days later. Working of No. 15 was discontinued on 3 January 1920; the other pits carried on into the 1920s.

Geology

The pits worked the Scottish Coal Measures for both coal and ironstone: the Main and Virgin coals, the Main ironstone, and the blackband ironstone that made the Carron Company's pits worth sinking in the first place.

Workings

Several numbered pits, of which Nos. 2, 15 and 17 were the ones returned together in the official lists by 1920. No. 15 was 175 fathoms deep — about 1,050 feet — and connected underground to No. 17, which is how the four men who got out of the 1913 fire got out. Machinemen, strippers, brushers, redsmen and gummers are the trades listed against the dead of 1913, the vocabulary of a mechanised Scottish pit.

Closure

The official list of 1920 records that working of No. 15 Pit had been discontinued on 3 January 1920, seven years after the fire. The Carron Company's remaining Cadder pits were still returning coal and ironstone in 1923.

What remains

The colliery is gone and the Mavis Valley rows with it; the ground is largely returned to canal-side and railway land north-east of Bishopbriggs.

No surface remains of the colliery have been located.

Nearby mines

• Garscube Colliery — 5.2 km W, North Lanarkshire
• Woodilee Colliery — 5.9 km E
• Cardowan Colliery — 6.6 km E, North Lanarkshire
• Meiklehill Colliery — 6.9 km NE
• Gartshore Colliery — 7.9 km NE

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

Disasters & major incidents

• Cadder Colliery fire
  3 August 1913 · Fire · 22 fatalities
  Fire broke out underground in No. 15 pit while the Sunday back shift was working. Twenty-two of the twenty-six men below died, most of them from smoke and gas. Four got out through the connection to No. 17, one of them found alive after nineteen hours.

Recorded claims

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

• Cadder belonged to the Carron Company of Falkirk throughout its recorded life, and worked coal and ironstone together — gas, household, manufacturing and steam coals alongside Main and blackband ironstone. Employment peaked at 707 in 1900 and had fallen to 416 across Nos. 2, 15 and 17 by 1923. ¹
• The official List of Mines for 1920 notes against the Cadder entry that working of No. 15 Pit had been discontinued on 3 January 1920. ¹
• Contemporary newspaper reports of the 1913 fire give No. 15 as 175 fathoms deep, about 1,050 feet, with around three hundred men employed at the colliery as a whole. ²

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Cadder Colliery — Durham Mining Museum
2. (secondary) Cadder 3 August 1913 — Scottish Mining Website

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