Gavieside No. 40 Mine

Overview

Young's Paraffin Company's Charlesfield mine at Gavieside, West Calder, opened about 1902 on a Dunnet Shale up to sixteen feet thick, which supplied Addiewell until it was abandoned in 1927.

History

Gavieside No. 40 Mine, sometimes called Charlesfield Mine, was opened about 1902 by Young's Paraffin Light and Mineral Oil Company near West Calder. It was an inclined shaft to the Dunnet Shale, which the Geological Survey in 1906 found between six and sixteen feet thick, with a general working thickness of about ten feet. A standard-gauge mineral line linked it to the Polbeth and Addiewell railway, and its shale went to Addiewell Oil Works. Powder magazines were licensed at Gavieside in 1904 and at No. 40 in 1906.

No. 40 employed 112 in 1915, 104 in 1920 and 129 in 1923. In May 1925 Young's warned that its lease of the Polbeth minerals would expire at Whitsunday and that work at the Polbeth and Gavieside mines and Addiewell might have to stop, leaving the whole workforce on one day's notice. Its workings in the Dunnet and the Under Dunnet or Barracks shale were abandoned in 1927. The site has returned to farmland, with minor subsidence near the mine mouth.

Geology

The Dunnet Shale, six to sixteen feet thick and generally worked at about ten feet, and the Under Dunnet or Barracks shale, in the Polbeth area.

Workings

An inclined shaft to the Dunnet Shale; a standard-gauge line to the Polbeth and Addiewell railway.

Closure

Workings abandoned in 1927, after a dispute over the Polbeth mineral lease had threatened closure in 1925.

What remains

Returned to agriculture.

Minor areas of subsidence near the mine mouth.

Recorded claims

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

• Gavieside No. 40 (Charlesfield) Mine was opened about 1902 by Young's Paraffin Light and Mineral Oil Company. ¹
• In 1906 its Dunnet Shale was six to sixteen feet thick, with a general working thickness of about ten feet. ¹
• No. 40 employed 112 in 1915 and 129 in 1923. ²
• Its workings were abandoned in 1927. ¹
• The abandonment plan of Gavieside No. 40 is dated 1927. ³

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Gavieside No.40 mine (Scottish Shale, Museum of the Scottish Shale Oil Industry) — Almond Valley Heritage Trust
2. (primary) Gavieside (Oil shale) (Durham Mining Museum) — Durham Mining Museum
3. (primary) BGS mine plan: GAVIESIDE NO.40, abandoned 1927 — British Geological Survey / Mining Remediation Authority

Record created: 25 October 2026 · Last researched: 25 October 2026