Kingseat Colliery

Overview

The pits that made the village of Kingseat, north-east of Dunfermline: Henderson, Wallace and Co.'s No. 1 of the 1860s, then Nos 2 and 3, working the Splint, Five Feet and Eight Feet coals with ironstone and fireclay for five hundred people in the 1890s. Worked out and abandoned by 1910, the site was reopened about 1902 as the Kingseat (Dean) Colliery, whose mines and resunk shafts ran until water drowned them in November 1945.

History

Coal was being got around Kingseat by the early nineteenth century, and the Fife Pits history places two pits north-west of the village by mid-century, one near the shore of Loch Fitty. Henderson, Wallace and Co. of Halbeath sank Kingseat No. 1 in the 1860s, a 456-foot downcast with a 339-foot upcast, and followed it with No. 2 to the east, called the Henderson pit, and No. 3 to the north-east, the Wallace pit, with a 660-foot downcast. The West of Fife Mineral Railway's Kingseat branch, authorised in 1861 and extended towards Beath in 1860 after a dispute over mineral rights, carried the coal away. Charles Carlow managed the pits in the 1870s and 1880s with a spell under A. Crookston, who left in 1881 to manage Wemyss; the seams were the Splint and Five Feet, with the Eight Feet and Upper Five Feet in No. 2, and the workforce across the three pits rose from 72 in 1874 to over 500 by 1882. Andrew Wallace took the concern on alone from 1877 until his death in 1888, and Wallace Brothers ran it through the 1890s, with a 24-foot Guibal fan on No. 1 by 1889 and gas, household, manufacturing and steam coal, ironstone and fireclay returned in the Lists. Employment was 511 in 1894, 429 in 1896 and 369 in 1900. No. 1 closed in 1902, John Irvine and Sons of Dunfermline worked what was left until about 1911, and the museum returns only 35 people in 1905 and 83 in 1910, when the Cairncubie, Lower Eight Feet, Six Feet and Swallowdrum were being worked; it dates the old colliery 1873 to 1910. Meanwhile the Kingseat Brickwork Company took a lease in 1904 to burn the 'huge blaes and fireclay bings at the now disused pit', and the Smith family's Kingseat Colliery Company, incorporated as the Kingseat Company Ltd in 1907 with £8,000 capital, reopened the ground as the Kingseat (Dean) Colliery, driving Dean Nos 1, 2 and 3 mines near the old No. 1 pit and a No. 4 surface mine by the Cowdenbeath road. Under David Nicholson and then Alexander Walker it grew from 93 people in 1908 to 292 in 1920; No. 1 pit was resunk to the Dunfermline Splint in 1925 and the old No. 3 reopened as Dean No. 3. By 1938 the Dean workings were largely closed and the surface mine carried the output; in November 1945 water invaded the colliery and it was abandoned by December. Sixteen deaths are named between 1866 and 1923. George Condie, 20, and Robert Condie, 47, were killed together by a fall of roof at the face on 10 September 1873, the fireman having told them the place was bad; William Paterson, a sinker, fell 25 fathoms from a pump the same month; a blacksmith was killed at the shaft in 1900 after shoeing horses at the mid-working; and John Lindsay, a coal cleaner of eleven, was killed by a North British Railway train beside the screens in 1896. The Dunfermline Press has an oversman in 1912 stepping off the landing into an empty shaft, catching the cage slides and surviving a forty-foot drop on to the cage.

Geology

Fife Coal Measures south of Loch Fitty: the Dunfermline Splint, Upper and Lower Five Feet, Eight Feet, Six Feet, Four Feet, Fourteen Feet, Dean, Swallowdrum, Cairncubie and Mynheer coals, with blackband ironstone and fireclay worked from the same pits.

Geological setting: Sedimentary Beds and Seams (historical documentary reference)

Workings

Three shafts in the nineteenth century, No. 1 with Guibal fan ventilation by 1889, then Dean Nos 1 to 3 mines and the No. 4 surface mine driven from about 1902, with No. 1 shaft resunk in 1925 and old No. 3 reopened. Longwall by 1875; rope haulage and hutches on the roads.

Closure

The old colliery was worked out by 1910. The Dean Colliery's underground workings were largely closed by 1938 and the No. 4 surface mine carried the output; in November 1945 water invaded the colliery, believed through the Dean No. 3 shaft, and it was abandoned by December.

What remains

A 2013 Geograph photograph shows the site of Kingseat Colliery as open ground beside Loch Fitty, with the photographer noting plans to drain the loch for opencast coal that lapsed when Scottish Coal went bust that year. The brickworks worked the bings from 1904.

Open ground and the line of the West of Fife Mineral Railway; the pit bings were burned for brick from 1904.

Nearby mines

• Lassodie Colliery — 1.9 km N
• Fordell Colliery — 3.4 km SE
• Donibristle Colliery — 4.7 km E
• Aitken Colliery — 5.0 km NE
• Lochgelly Colliery — 5.7 km NE

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.

• Henderson, Wallace and Co. sank No. 1 in the 1860s and Nos 2 (Henderson) and 3 (Wallace) pits; Andrew Wallace 1877–88, Wallace Brothers in the 1890s, John Irvine and Sons c.1902–11; the Kingseat Colliery Company, later Kingseat Company Ltd, worked the Dean Colliery on the same ground from c.1902 to 1945. ^1,2,3
• No. 1 downcast 456 ft and upcast 339 ft; No. 3 downcast 660 ft and upcast 537 ft (1878); a 24 ft Guibal fan on No. 1 by 1889; No. 1 resunk to the Dunfermline Splint in 1925. ^1,2
• 72 in 1874, 507 in 1882, 511 in 1894, 369 in 1900, 35 in 1905 and 83 in 1910 at the old colliery; the Dean Colliery had 93 in 1908, 292 in 1920 and 308 at Dean No. 3 in 1945. ^1,2,3
• The museum dates the old colliery 1873–1910; No. 1 closed in 1902; the Dean workings were largely closed by 1938 and the colliery was flooded in November 1945 and abandoned by December. ^2,3
• The Kingseat Brickwork Company took a lease in September 1904 to work the blaes and fireclay bings of the disused pit, for about 10,000 bricks a day. ⁴
• Sixteen named deaths 1866–1923, including George and Robert Condie killed together by a fall of roof on 10 September 1873 after the fireman had warned the place was bad. ³

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Kingseat Pits & Mines — Fife Pits — Fife Pits and Memorial Book
2. (secondary) Kingseat (Dean) Colliery — Fife Pits — Fife Pits and Memorial Book
3. (secondary) Kingseat Colliery — Durham Mining Museum — Durham Mining Museum
4. (secondary) Kingseat Colliery Brickworks — Scotland's Brick and Tile Manufacturing Industry — Scottish Brick History
5. (observational) Site of Kingseat Colliery (Geograph photo 3479833, 2013) — Geograph
6. (secondary) Kingseat, No.2 Pit — Buddlepit Mine Database — Buddlepit / Mining History Trust
7. (secondary) Mineral railways of Dunfermline — Wikipedia — Wikipedia

Record created: 12 September 2026 · Last researched: 12 September 2026