Hilderston Silver Mine

Overview

Hilderston Silver Mine, discovered by chance in 1606, was seized from its original leaseholder by King James VI in 1608, who used rumours of a silver bonanza to raise a City of London loan before the mine's ore proved too poor to turn a profit.

History

Silver was discovered at Hilderston in the Bathgate Hills, West Lothian, in June 1606, found by chance by a collier named Sandy Maund. The landowner, Sir Thomas Hamilton, the King's Advocate, obtained a lease to work minerals in Linlithgowshire and brought in English mining entrepreneur Bevis Bulmer and Scottish goldsmith Thomas Foulis, who named the main shaft 'God's Blessing' and brought Cornish miners to the site in April 1607; the partnership collapsed by August 1607 when Bulmer said he could not pay the workers. King James VI intervened directly: by January 1608 Hamilton had been displaced and the Crown took possession of the mine, John Arnot taking it over on the king's behalf, with Hamilton compensated for his loss. King James used rumours of a silver bonanza at Hilderston to help leverage a loan in the City of London -- an act sometimes described as an early example of nationalisation. Formal royal extraction began on 8 May 1608 under Bevis Bulmer as governor of the works, with George Bruce of Carnock (of the Moat Pit at Culross) as treasurer, employing Cornish and German miners, including Emanuel Hochstetter of Keswick and, from October 1608, eight miners sent specially from Saxony. A refinery was built at the west end of Linlithgow Loch, but smelting trials at an ironmaster's furnace in Sussex in December 1608 showed the ore to be of disappointing and variable quality. By 1613 the contract had passed to Thomas Foulis working with William Alexander and a Portuguese partner, Paulo Pinto, but Treasury records show the mine never turned a profit, and it closed soon after 1614. The site saw two later, unrelated reworkings: from 1766 the Earl of Hopetoun worked it for lead until 1772, and in 1870 Henry Aitken reopened it in search of silver, finding instead the nickel ore niccolite and baryta, which were sent to Germany for processing.

Workings

Worked via a main shaft named 'God's Blessing' by its original developers; the section still accessible today is an adit, probably driven during the 1766-72 lead-mining phase, entered through a masonry arch beside a flooded limestone quarry pond.

What remains

An adit remains accessible, its passages including crawling sections, water channels and several collapsed branches extending over 100 metres; surface remains include workers' housing, lime kilns and spoil heaps.

Workers' housing, lime kilns and spoil heaps survive at the surface; the accessible adit shows unstable timber props and areas of flooding and rubble infill.

Recorded claims

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

• King James VI used rumours of a silver bonanza at Hilderston to help leverage a loan in the City of London after the Crown took possession of the mine in early 1608, an act sometimes described as an early example of nationalisation. ¹
• Royal extraction from 8 May 1608 employed Cornish and German miners, including Emanuel Hochstetter of Keswick and eight miners sent specially from Saxony in October 1608; a refinery was built at the west end of Linlithgow Loch, but smelting trials in Sussex in December 1608 showed the ore to be of poor and variable quality. ¹
• The mine was reworked twice long after its original 1606-1614 operation: for lead from 1766 to 1772 under the Earl of Hopetoun, and again in 1870 by Henry Aitken, who found the nickel ore niccolite and baryta but no significant silver. ¹
• The section of the mine still accessible today is an adit, probably driven during the 1766-72 lead-mining phase, its passages including crawling sections, water channels and several collapsed branches extending over 100 metres from a masonry-arched entrance beside a flooded limestone quarry pond. ²

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Hilderston, West Lothian — Wikipedia
2. (secondary) King Jamie's Silver Mines (adit) — Scottish Cave and Mine Database

Record created: 2 September 2026 · Last researched: 2 September 2026