Herdshill Colliery

Overview

A Coltness Iron Company mine near Newmains, worked from at least the 1860s and employing over 300 men in the Kiltongue and Drumgray coals in the early twentieth century.

History

Herdshill lay near Newmains, among the pits of the Coltness Iron Company. Plans of abandoned Herdshill workings date from 1866 and 1892. In the 1890s and 1900s the Coltness company worked it for household, manufacturing and steam coal and fireclay, from the Kiltongue and Mid Drumgray seams; it employed 175 men in 1894, 293 in 1900 and 347 in 1905.

In 1910 the housing inquiry recorded Herdshill Mine with 300 men underground and 40 at the surface. Only 59 of them lived in company houses, at Newmains, Waterloo and Cambusnethan; the rest rented houses spread across Cambusnethan, Newmains, Gillhead, Waterloo, Overtown and nearby villages. Its shafts were the scene of two deaths within two years: in 1907 an enginekeeper at a shaft used only for lowering timber pushed a tub through the shaft door forgetting the cage was not there, and in 1909 a labourer bringing props to the shaft stumbled through its door and fell to meet the ascending cage. By 1920 the mine worked the Kiltongue and the Upper, Mid and Lower Drumgray coals with 239 men.

Geology

The Kiltongue and the Upper, Mid and Lower Drumgray coals, with fireclay.

Workings

A winding shaft and a separate timber shaft boxed in at the surface; longwall faces with holing.

Closure

Still employing 239 men in 1920; when it closed is unknown.

What remains

Unknown.

Related mines

• Bailliesmuir Colliery — Coltness Iron Company mines at Newmains, listed together in the 1910 housing returns.
• Glenclelland Colliery — Neighbouring Coltness Iron Company pits at Newmains.
• Pather Colliery — Neighbouring Coltness Iron Company workings in Cambusnethan parish.
• Stonecraigs Colliery — Coltness Iron Company pits at Newmains.

Recorded claims

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

• Herdshill, Newmains, belonged to the Coltness Iron Co. Ltd. ^1,2
• Herdshill employed 175 men in 1894 and 347 in 1905. ²
• In 1910 Herdshill Mine near Newmains had 300 men underground and 40 above, most living in rented houses in Cambusnethan, Newmains, Gillhead, Waterloo and Overtown. ¹
• The earliest abandonment plans of Herdshill workings are dated 1866. ³

Sources

1. (secondary) 1910 Housing (Lanarkshire, Cambusnethan and Dalziel parishes) — Scottish Mining Website
2. (primary) Herdshill Colliery — Durham Mining Museum
3. (primary) BGS / Mining Remediation Authority mine plan 21854282: Herdshill, abandoned 1866 — British Geological Survey

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