Fauldhouse Colliery

Overview

A group of small ironstone and coal pits on the lands of Fauldhouse, Benthead and Braehead around the West Lothian village of Fauldhouse, worked by the Glasgow ironmasters William Dixon, later William Dixon Ltd, from the 1850s. Numbered pits sunk to the Slatyband ironstone and to the Shotts Ball, Big and Shotts Furnace coals fed the company's Govan ironworks; the ironstone was given up between 1878 and 1891 and Dixon's Fauldhouse coal pits had dwindled to 69 employees by 1896. The Durham Mining Museum carries the later Barr and Thornton No. 1 pit, the Knowes, under the same heading, but that pit, worked from the 1890s to 1946, has its own record here.

History

Fauldhouse grew from three small settlements after coal and, above all, an extractable slatery ironstone were found in the 1830s, and by the twentieth century some twenty pits had been worked around it. William Dixon of Govan acquired the Fauldhouse minerals and the 1855 Mineral Statistics list a Dixon colliery there, returned under Bathgate. The company's numbered pits ran across three estates: No. 1, No. 5 and No. 11 on the lands of Fauldhouse, No. 8, No. 9 and No. 10 on Benthead, and No. 13 on Braehead. The Slatyband ironstone was worked from Nos. 8 and 9 until November 1878, when the abandonment plan names W. S. Dixon as lessor and William Dixon (Limited) as lessee, and from No. 13 until April 1891, when a local paper reported the men of the idle No. 9 restarting in No. 13's ironstone workings because of a good demand from the company's own Govan works. The 1880 official return lists two Fauldhouse collieries at Whitburn, one under W. Dixon Limited and one under Thomas Thornton. The 1883 and 1885 Lists of Mines, under the manager Thomas Nimmo, give No. 1 working the Shotts Ball coal by longwall with 20 and then 55 employed from twin shafts 132 feet deep, No. 5 the Big Coal with 20, No. 8 the Shotts Ball with 70 and then 107 from a 330-foot shaft, and No. 9 the same coal with 62 and then 76 from shafts of 300 and 270 feet; all were non-fiery pits ventilated by furnace. The Durham Mining Museum's returns give 103 employed at Fauldhouse in 1894 under R. Thomson and 69 in 1896, raising household, manufacturing and steam coal with ironstone, and the company's 1896 list names the pit as Handaxwood, Fauldhouse. Ten men and boys are named as killed at the colliery between 1860 and 1892, the youngest a twelve-year-old drawer under a fall of roof in 1881 and two others run over by waggons on their way home. After Dixon the Fauldhouse name passed to Barr and Thornton Ltd's No. 1 pit, the Knowes, which the Durham Mining Museum lists under this heading with 355 employed in 1933 and which closed by ministerial order in 1946; the last of the village's pits closed in 1974.

Geology

The Fauldhouse pits worked the Lower Coal Measures and Limestone Coal Group of the Central Coalfield's western edge, where thin coals are interleaved with the clayband and blackband ironstones that first drew industry to the village: the Slatyband ironstone, taken from Nos. 8, 9 and 13, and the coals named in the returns as the Shotts Ball, the Big Coal, the Shotts Furnace coal at 40 fathoms in No. 10, and later the Mill, Ball and Main. A miner was killed by a fall of ironstone balls in 1865.

Geological setting: Sedimentary Beds and Seams (well documented example)

Workings

Small paired shafts, 132 to 330 feet deep, each pit with a downcast and an upcast ventilated by a furnace; coal got by longwall. Nos. 8 and 9 were ironstone pits first and coal pits after 1878; No. 13 was an ironstone pit to the last, served by the siding that also served the Leadloch pits off the Caledonian Railway's Benhar branch.

Closure

The ironstone workings were abandoned in November 1878 (Nos. 8 and 9) and April 1891 (No. 13), and Dixon's coal pits had fallen to 69 employees by 1896, after which the company's returns no longer list a Fauldhouse colliery. No closure date for the last Dixon coal pit has been found.

What remains

The Benthead and Braehead pit sites lie within forestry. Scottish Shale photographed the No. 9 site in September 2022, with the shaft site, fused pit waste and a bing being prepared for planting, and No. 13 in February 2023, where subsidence marks the shaft and a landscaped ironstone bing stands beside the old siding. The No. 1 Knowes site is now Knowes Colliery Community Woodland.

Landscaped and forested bings at Nos. 8, 9, 10 and 13, with subsidence at the No. 13 shaft.

Related mines

• Knowes Colliery — The Knowes was Fauldhouse No. 1 pit under Barr and Thornton, the successor to the Thornton colliery returned beside Dixon's in 1880; the Durham Mining Museum lists both under one Fauldhouse Colliery heading.

Nearby mines

• Knowes Colliery — 0.9 km E
• Polkemmet Colliery — 4.3 km N
• Shotts Iron Works — 5.0 km W, North Lanarkshire
• Addiewell Oil Works — 7.0 km NE
• Kingshill No. 3 Colliery — 7.7 km W, South Lanarkshire

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

Recorded claims

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

• The 1855 Mineral Statistics list a Fauldhouse colliery under William Dixon, returned at Bathgate, Linlithgowshire. ^1,2
• The 1880 official list gives two Fauldhouse collieries at Whitburn, one under W. Dixon Limited and one under Thomas Thornton. ³
• The Slatyband ironstone workings of Nos. 8 and 9 pits were abandoned in November 1878; the plan names W. S. Dixon as lessor and William Dixon (Limited) as lessee. ^4,5,6
• No. 13 pit on the lands of Braehead was the last of Dixon's Fauldhouse ironstone pits, closing in April 1891; its Slatyband workings are plotted on an 1891 plan. ^7,8
• In 1883 and 1885, under manager Thomas Nimmo, No. 1 worked the Shotts Ball coal by longwall from 132-foot shafts with 20 and then 55 employed, No. 8 from a 330-foot shaft with 70 and then 107, No. 9 from shafts of 300 and 270 feet with 62 and then 76, and No. 5 the Big Coal with 20; all were non-fiery pits ventilated by furnace. ^9,10,4,5
• No. 10 pit, on Benthead, worked the Shotts Furnace coal at 40 fathoms and was opened after 1855 and closed before 1895. ¹¹
• Fauldhouse employed 103 people in 1894 and 69 in 1896, raising household, manufacturing and steam coal with ironstone; the 1894 manager was R. Thomson. ^1,2
• Ten deaths are recorded at the colliery between 1860 and 1892, including a twelve-year-old drawer killed by a fall of roof in 1881 and a miner killed by a fall of ironstone balls in 1865. ¹
• Some twenty pits operated around Fauldhouse, the last closing in 1974; the village developed from the 1830s on coal and an extractable slatery ironstone. ¹²
• The Durham Mining Museum lists Barr and Thornton Ltd and the National Coal Board under Fauldhouse Colliery with 355 employed at No. 1 in 1933; that pit is the Knowes, which Scottish Shale treats as distinct from Dixon's earlier No. 1. ^1,9
• The No. 9 site was photographed in September 2022 with fused pit waste and a bing prepared for planting, and No. 13 in February 2023 with subsidence at the shaft and a landscaped ironstone bing. ^5,7

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Durham Mining Museum: Fauldhouse Colliery — Durham Mining Museum
2. (secondary) Durham Mining Museum: William Dixon Ltd. — Durham Mining Museum
3. (secondary) List of coal mines UK 1880 — Coalmining History Resource Centre
4. (secondary) Fauldhouse No.8 pit — Scottish Shale
5. (observational) Fauldhouse No.9 pit (with site photographs, 17 September 2022) — Scottish Shale
6. (primary) Plan of the Nos. 8 and 9 pits, Fauldhouse Colliery, Slatyband ironstone workings abandoned November 1878, lessees William Dixon (Limited) (mine plans catalogue) — British Geological Survey / Mining Remediation Authority
7. (observational) Fauldhouse No.13 pit (with site photographs, 11 February 2023) — Scottish Shale
8. (primary) Fauldhouse No. 13 pit Slatyband ironstone workings, 1891 (mine plans catalogue) — British Geological Survey / Mining Remediation Authority
9. (secondary) Fauldhouse No.1 pit — Scottish Shale (Museum of the Scottish Shale Oil Industry)
10. (secondary) Fauldhouse No.5 pit — Scottish Shale
11. (secondary) Fauldhouse No.10 pit — Scottish Shale
12. (secondary) Fauldhouse — Wikipedia

Record created: 6 September 2026 · Last researched: 9 September 2026