Maxwood Colliery

Overview

A colliery of Littlejohn & Sons just beyond the boundary of the burgh of Galston, on the road towards Newmilns, and the last of the fifteen or so pits around the town to stop work. Its closure in 1933 ended coal mining in Galston. Like its neighbour Gauchalland, what is best recorded about it is its two rows of company houses, walked and written up by the Royal Commission on Housing in Scotland in 1913.

History

Maxwood was one of as many as fifteen mines working in and around Galston at the end of the nineteenth century, when the pits between them employed about a thousand men. It outlasted all of them: the Galston pits closed one by one through the early twentieth century and mining in the burgh ceased in 1933 with Maxwood’s closure. The Royal Commission’s investigators reached the Maxwood Rows in 1913. There were two rows of ten houses each — ten of a single apartment and ten of two — built of brick with the walls only thinly cemented, standing on high ground just outside the burgh boundary towards Newmilns. A single-apartment house, about sixteen feet by eleven, cost 1s 7d a week and a two-apartment house 2s 6½d, rates included. Twenty families shared four closets and four ashpits; the closets had doors, the ashpits no roofs, and both stood in front of the house doors. Every tenant had a coalhouse and none had a washing-house. Several rents in the walls appeared to have been caused by subsidence, and the tenants complained of damp. The pathways were unpaved and muddy. One well, fed by gravitation and stored in a tank, served all twenty families, and because the houses stood high the tenants often waited a long time to fill a pail. The houses belonged to Messrs Littlejohn & Sons, coalmasters of Galston.

Geology

Coal Measures of the Ayrshire coalfield, on rising ground between Galston and Newmilns. No account of the seams worked at Maxwood specifically has been found in the sources reached.

Workings

No description of the underground workings has been found. On the surface, two brick rows of ten houses each stood on a considerable elevation outside the burgh boundary, with four closets and four ashpits in front of the doors and a single gravitation-fed well and tank for all twenty families.

Closure

Maxwood closed in 1933 and mining in Galston ended with it. No account of why has been found, though it stopped in the depths of the interwar depression, when the Scottish coalfield was shedding pits steadily.

What remains

Nothing of the colliery or its rows has been identified on the ground. The memorial cairn to Galston’s dead miners, unveiled opposite Barr Castle in 2009, commemorates the men of Maxwood among the rest.

None identified.

Nearby mines

• Gauchalland Colliery — 2.2 km W
• Portland Colliery — 5.7 km W

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.

• Mining in Galston ceased in 1933 with the closure of the last working pit, Maxwood Colliery. ¹
• The Maxwood Rows were two rows of ten houses, one of single apartments and one of two, built of brick with thinly cemented walls just outside the burgh boundary towards Newmilns; rents were 1s 7d and 2s 6½d a week inclusive of rates, and twenty families shared four closets and four ashpits, the ashpits roofless and both in front of the doors. ²
• One gravitation-fed well and tank supplied all twenty families, and because the houses stood on a considerable elevation the supply was often so scarce that tenants waited a long time to fill their pails; several rents in the walls appeared to have been caused by subsidence and the tenants complained of damp. ²
• The houses were owned by Messrs Littlejohn & Sons, coalmasters of Galston, and inhabited by their workers and their families. ²

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Covenanters, coal and the Covies — Ayrshire Magazine
2. (primary) Ayrshire miners’ rows, 1913: report to the Royal Commission on Housing (Scotland) — Ayrshire Archaeological and Natural History Society
3. (secondary) List of coal mines UK 1880 — Coalmining History Resource Centre

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