Oxenford Colliery

Overview

A colliery west of Ormiston, near Dalkeith, working by 1859 and owned by the Ormiston Coal Company from the early 1900s. The National Coal Board sank a No. 3 Pit in 1949 and worked it with Tynemount until 1959.

History

Oxenford Colliery lay west of Ormiston, near the boundary between East Lothian and Midlothian, and was long described as near Dalkeith. Its No. 2 Pit is dated from 1854, and it was working by 1859, when the inspector of mines reported a collier killed in the shaft: a wooden prop thrown down at the pithead rolled into the pit and fell on him as he rode up in a cage that had no cover. In 1865 a boy drawer of twelve, Charles Good, was crushed on an incline drum where there was no brakesman. Its owners are recorded as A. White and Co. and then the Ormiston Coal Company, which had it by 1910, when it employed 138 people in the Diamond and Five Feet seams.

Under the Ormiston company Oxenford grew to 216 people in 1920, fell to 75 in 1933 and recovered to 125 by 1940. At nationalisation in 1947 No. 2 Pit employed 122 and raised 45,000 tons of household, manufacturing and steam coal; it closed in 1951. The National Coal Board sank No. 3 from 1949, and in 1954 it employed 250 people working the Nos. 1 and 2 Diamond seams. The Board's Ormiston group took in No. 3, which lay on the Midlothian side of the boundary, and listed it together with Tynemount. The last plans of No. 3, in the Four Foot, Five Foot, Main and Diamond seams, and those of the Castle workings, filed as Oxenford No. 2, are dated 1959, and No. 3 closed in January that year. An Ormiston miner's memoir has Oxenford closing with Bellyford in 1962, ending nearly four hundred years of coal working in the area.

Geology

Midlothian coalfield, Ormiston basin: the Nos. 1 and 2 Diamond, Five Feet, Four Feet, Three Feet, Main, Splint, Great and Parrot seams.

Workings

Nos. 1, 2 and 3 Pits; No. 3 sunk by the National Coal Board from 1949 and worked with Tynemount.

Closure

No. 2 closed in 1951 and No. 3 in January 1959, the date of its abandonment plans; an Ormiston memoir gives 1962, and the Coal Board listed No. 3 with Tynemount, abandoned in December 1962.

What remains

Unknown.

Redevelopment

Unknown.

Related mines

• Limeylands Colliery — Ormiston Coal Company pits at Ormiston.
• Tynemount Colliery — Ormiston Coal Company pits; the National Coal Board listed Oxenford No. 3 with Tynemount.

What's uncertain

Points where sources disagree or the record could not be settled; both accounts are kept. All open questions in the archive.

• Oxenford No. 3 was sunk in 1949 and closed in January 1959. (disputed) ^1,2
• Oxenford closed in 1962, with Bellyford. (disputed) ⁷

Recorded claims

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

• Oxenford No. 2 is dated 1854 to 1951. ¹
• Oxenford No. 3 was sunk in 1949 and closed in January 1959. (disputed) ^1,2
• In 1859 a collier at Oxenford Colliery, near Dalkeith, was killed by a prop that rolled into the pit from the pithead while he rode up in a cage without a cover. ³
• Oxenford employed 138 people in 1910, 216 in 1920, 75 in 1933 and 125 in 1940 under the Ormiston Coal Company. ⁴
• At nationalisation No. 2 Pit employed 122 and raised 45,000 tons; No. 3 employed 250 in 1954. ⁵
• The National Coal Board's Ormiston group included Oxenford No. 3, which lay in Midlothian, and listed it with Tynemount. ⁶
• Oxenford closed in 1962, with Bellyford. (disputed) ⁷
• Plans of the Castle workings, filed as Oxenford No. 2, were abandoned in 1959. ⁸

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) NCB Collieries - Scotland (Northern Mine Research Society) — Northern Mine Research Society
2. (primary) BGS mine plan: Oxenford No 3, Four Foot, abandoned 1959 — BGS / Mining Remediation Authority mine plans
3. (primary) Oxenford Colliery shaft accident, 1859 — Durham Mining Museum
4. (primary) Ormiston Coal Co., Ltd. — Durham Mining Museum
5. (primary) Oxenford Colliery — Durham Mining Museum
6. (secondary) Coal industry: an overview, appendices — East Lothian Fourth Statistical Account
7. (secondary) Ormiston: Economy — The Fourth Statistical Account of East Lothian
8. (primary) BGS mine plan: Castle (Oxenford No 2), Parrot, abandoned 1959 — BGS / Mining Remediation Authority mine plans

Record created: 4 October 2026 · Last researched: 4 October 2026