Dalmeny No. 2 and 3 Pits

Overview

The Dalmeny Oil Company's shale pits beside Dalmeny Oil Works, near South Queensferry, working the Broxburn Shale from the 1870s to 1914; the workings of Nos. 2 and 3 were linked. Roof falls and a firedamp ignition killed two men at a time in 1908 and 1911. The sites lie under an oil terminal and an approach road to the Forth bridges.

History

The Dalmeny Oil Company, floated in 1871 on a mineral field 'amply proved' and machinery for 200 tons of shale a day, sank three pits, Dalmeny Nos. 1, 2 and 3, with four air pits, into the Broxburn Shale around its oil works at Dalmeny, near South Queensferry. The site of No. 1 has not been identified. No. 2 was a vertical shaft whose workings were linked to those of No. 3; its surface buildings were cleared before 1896 and the site later buried under spent shale from the oil works. No. 3, the last of the three, was working by 1885, when contractors were sought to sink a dook and work places there.

Its accidents in the 1900s included a drawer struck by shale falling from the side as he took a loaded tub out in 1906; in 1907 a repairer was crushed while the roof at the pit bottom was being heightened during the holiday. On 12 February 1908 a roof fall on the haulage road killed the fireman and a drawer and injured the manager (see Disasters, below); that May a fourteen-year-old signaller was crushed by tubs at a haulage dook. On 16 October 1911 a drawer's naked light fired gas that had gathered in a worked-out area where the roof had fallen through two seams of shale, and the flame burned two men there and three coming to help; two died.

The workings of Nos. 2 and 3 were abandoned in 1901 and finally in 1914. After closure the pithead of No. 3 became the terminus of the tramway from the Rosshill mines. The site of No. 2 is landscaped ground within an oil terminal built inside a bund made from the Dalmeny bing, and that of No. 3 lies beneath the approach road to the Forth Bridge.

Geology

The Broxburn (Main), Curly, New and Brushing shales.

Workings

Vertical shafts Nos. 1, 2 and 3 with four air pits, Nos. 2 and 3 linked underground; haulage dooks and stoop working.

Closure

The workings of Nos. 2 and 3 were abandoned in 1901 and finally in 1914.

What remains

The site of No. 2 is within an oil terminal; that of No. 3 lies beneath the approach road to the Forth Bridge.

Redevelopment

Oil storage terminal on the landscaped Dalmeny bing; road.

Disasters & major incidents

• Dalmeny shale pits roof fall, 1908
  12 February 1908 · Collapse / Roof Fall · 2 fatalities
  On the night of 12 February 1908 men were clearing a fall from the haulage road of the Dalmeny Oil Company's shale mine near South Queensferry, which had long been under repair and heightening, when a large stone fell from the roof fifteen feet above and buried five of them. The fireman, George Halkett, was killed outright and a second man died before reaching the infirmary; the manager, examining the roof at the time, was critically injured.

Recorded claims

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

• The Dalmeny Oil Company's prospectus of 1871 promised machinery for an output of 200 tons of shale a day. ¹
• Nos. 2 and 3 were vertical shafts into the Broxburn Shale whose workings were linked; No. 3 was the last of three pits. ^2,3
• On 16 October 1911 a naked light fired gas in a worked-out area at Dalmeny; five men were burned and two died. ^4,5
• The workings of Dalmeny Nos. 2 and 3 were abandoned in 1914. ^3,6
• The site of No. 3 lies beneath the approach road to the Forth Bridge. ³

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Scottish Shale: Dalmeny No.1 pit — Scottish Shale (Museum of the Scottish Shale Oil Industry, Almond Valley Heritage Trust)
2. (secondary) Scottish Shale: Dalmeny No.2 pit — Scottish Shale (Museum of the Scottish Shale Oil Industry, Almond Valley Heritage Trust)
3. (secondary) Scottish Shale: Dalmeny No.3 pit — Scottish Shale (Museum of the Scottish Shale Oil Industry, Almond Valley Heritage Trust)
4. (primary) NMRS Coal Mining Accidents and Deaths: Dalmeny, 1911 (Grieve) — Northern Mine Research Society
5. (primary) NMRS Coal Mining Accidents and Deaths: Dalmeny, 1911 (Gilhooley) — Northern Mine Research Society
6. (primary) BGS / Mining Remediation Authority mine plan: Dalmeny Nos. 2 and 3 and Railway, Main (or Broxburn), Curly and New, abandoned 1914 — British Geological Survey
7. (primary) BGS / Mining Remediation Authority mine plan: Dalmeny Nos. 2 and 3 and Railway, Main or Broxburn, Curly, New and Brushing, abandoned 1901 — British Geological Survey
8. (primary) NMRS Coal Mining Accidents and Deaths: Dalmeny, 1906 — Northern Mine Research Society
9. (primary) NMRS Coal Mining Accidents and Deaths: Dalmeny, 1908 (Bond) — Northern Mine Research Society
10. (primary) NMRS Coal Mining Accidents and Deaths: Dalmeny, 1908 (Halkett) — Northern Mine Research Society
11. (primary) NMRS Coal Mining Accidents and Deaths: Dalmeny, 1908 (Henderson) — Northern Mine Research Society

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