Carfin Colliery

Overview

A colliery at Carfin near Motherwell, worked from at least the 1850s by William Dixon and later W. Dixon Ltd, with coal, ironstone and oil shale pits and a brickworks; it employed nearly 600 men in 1910.

History

Carfin Colliery lay at Carfin, near Motherwell, in Bothwell parish. Deaths there are recorded from 1853, and in 1857 the colliery belonged to William Dixon, the Glasgow coal and ironmaster whose firm held it for most of its life. In the late 1860s the coal master Alexander Gray Simpson, a founder member of the Glasgow Coal Exchange, worked the Coltness and Carfin collieries, built his mansion, Carfin Hall, just west of the colliery, and sold composition and fire bricks from it; after a collapse in the coal trade he emigrated to America in 1880. By 1881 Dixon's were making bricks at their Carfin Colliery, and a Carfin Coal Company also worked coal and fireclay there.

In 1893 two concerns were listed at Carfin: the Carfin Coal Company, raising coal, and William Dixon Ltd, raising coal, ironstone and oil shale. The Dixon pits produced gas, household, manufacturing and steam coal; in 1910 they worked the Blackband, Ell and Pyotshaw seams and employed 594 men, 491 of them underground. Its Pits Nos. 1 and 2 stood beside the brickworks and a No. 6 Pit worked the splint coal. Among its recorded accidents, in 1879 two brushers were overcome by chokedamp from an old waste that had driven men out before, in 1891 two sinkers were killed by dynamite while stemming a shot, and in 1911 a pony driver, thinking the cage was at a mid-landing, pushed his hutch into the shaft and fell forty fathoms. In 1924 a sixteen-year-old picker, Annie Arminus, was run over by the colliery locomotive near the screening plant.

Employment fell to 323 by 1923 and 70 by 1933, and abandonment plans of the Main and Pyotshaw workings are dated 1928. Dixon's Carfin brickworks outlived the pits, making bricks from the colliery bings and a new mine at Todholeburn until they were dismantled in 1947.

Geology

The Lanarkshire coalfield: the Main, Ell, Pyotshaw, Splint and Blackband coals, with blackband ironstone, oil shale and fireclay.

Workings

Several pits, among them Nos. 1 and 2 beside the brickworks and No. 6 in the splint coal; shafts with mid-landings, haulage inclines, screens served by a locomotive line, and a brick and fireclay works.

Closure

Employment fell to 70 by 1933; abandonment plans of the Main and Pyotshaw workings are dated 1928. When the colliery closed is unknown.

What remains

Unknown.

Related mines

• Cleland Colliery — Neighbouring Lanarkshire collieries; BGS files some Carfin plans with Cleland's.
• Motherwell Colliery — Neighbouring collieries near Motherwell.

Disasters & major incidents

• Carfin Colliery chokedamp accident, 1879
  23 September 1879 · Gas / Asphyxiation · 2 fatalities
  Around midnight on 22 September 1879 chokedamp from the old Jerviston waste flooded the Splint coal workings of No. 1 Pit, Carfin. Three brushers stayed on to finish their work after the fireman warned them; one escaped in the dark, and Dougan and John Strain were suffocated.
• Carfin Colliery shaft explosion, 1891
  26 November 1891 · Explosion · 2 fatalities
  On 26 November 1891 four sinkers were charging shot holes with dynamite in a sinking shaft at William Dixon's Carfin No. 1 when two cartridges, sent down still frozen, exploded under the tamping rod, killing Bernard Gillon and James Laird.

Recorded claims

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

• In 1857 Carfin Colliery, near Holytown, belonged to William Dixon. ^1,2
• In 1868-69 Alexander Gray Simpson worked the Coltness and Carfin collieries and sold bricks from Carfin Colliery; he emigrated to America in 1880. ³
• In 1893 the Carfin Coal Company and William Dixon Ltd were both listed at Carfin, Dixon's raising coal, ironstone and oil shale. ⁴
• Carfin Colliery employed 594 men in 1910, 491 of them below ground, and 70 in 1933. ²
• A brickworks stood beside Carfin Colliery Pits Nos. 1 and 2 and was dismantled in 1947. ^3,5
• Abandonment plans of the Carfin Main and Pyotshaw workings are dated 1928. ⁶

Sources

1. (secondary) 1857 Fatal Accidents — Scottish Mining Website
2. (primary) Carfin Colliery — Durham Mining Museum
3. (secondary) Carfin Colliery Brickworks, Carfin, North Lanarkshire — Scotland's Brick and Tile Manufacturing Industry (scottishbrickhistory.co.uk)
4. (primary) List of Mines in Scotland, 1893 — Scottish Mining Website
5. (secondary) Carfin Colliery, Brick Works — Historic Environment Scotland (Canmore / trove.scot)
6. (primary) BGS / Mining Remediation Authority mine plan 21906677: Carfin, Main and Pyotshaw, abandoned 1928 — British Geological Survey

Record created: 21 October 2026 · Last researched: 21 October 2026