Collyshot Colliery

Overview

A Coltness Iron Company colliery near Newmains, worked in the stoop-and-room Splint coal with about 150 men in 1894 and abandoned in 1910.

History

Collyshot lay near Newmains, in Cambusnethan parish, and belonged to the Coltness Iron Company. In the 1880s it was worked stoop and room, and its recorded deaths were typical of such a pit: a collier of 18 killed by a fall of side while holing in 1884, a bottomer of 64 who ran a tub into the open shaft when the cage was not there and fell after it in 1886, a roadsman killed repairing a haulage road in 1887, and a drawer of 53 who fell on the corner of a tub in 1888. In 1893 the colliery was listed under the Coltness company with John Wardlaw as manager.

Collyshot raised gas, household, manufacturing and steam coal and ironstone. It employed 147 men in 1894 but only 40 in 1900 and 21 in 1905, working the Splint coal. The 1910 housing inquiry recorded Collyshot Mine with 21 men below ground and 3 above, living mostly in rented houses in Cambusnethan and Newmains. That year it was abandoned, with its plans sent to the Home Office, and a plan of its workings with Sunnyside, Glenclelland and Knocknoble is dated 1900.

Geology

The Splint coal, with ironstone.

Workings

Stoop-and-room workings with haulage roads; a shaft worked by cage.

Closure

Abandoned in 1910, with plans sent to the Home Office.

What remains

Unknown.

Related mines

• Bailliesmuir Colliery — Coltness Iron Company mines at Newmains, listed together in the 1910 housing returns.
• Glenclelland Colliery — Coltness Iron Company pits whose workings appear on a joint plan of 1900.

Recorded claims

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

• Collyshot, near Newmains, belonged to the Coltness Iron Co. Ltd; in 1893 its manager was John Wardlaw. ^1,2
• Collyshot employed 147 men in 1894, 40 in 1900 and 21 in 1905, and was abandoned in 1910. ²
• In 1910 Collyshot Mine had 21 men underground and 3 above. ³
• In May 1884 a collier of 18 was killed at Collyshot by a fall of side while holing in stoop-and-room workings. ^4,2
• A plan of the Collyshot, Sunnyside, Glenclelland and Knocknoble workings is dated 1900, and plans of Collyshot itself 1881 and 1910. ^5,6

Sources

1. (primary) List of Mines in Scotland, 1893 — Scottish Mining Website
2. (primary) Collyshot Colliery — Durham Mining Museum
3. (secondary) 1910 Housing (Lanarkshire, Cambusnethan and Dalziel parishes) — Scottish Mining Website
4. (secondary) Scottish Mining Website: fatal accidents 1884 — Scottish Mining Website
5. (primary) BGS / Mining Remediation Authority mine plan 21856772: Collyshot / Sunnyside / Glenclelland / Knocknoble, abandoned 1900 — British Geological Survey
6. (primary) BGS / Mining Remediation Authority mine plan 21913589: Collyshot, abandoned 1910 — British Geological Survey

Record created: 20 October 2026 · Last researched: 21 October 2026