Parkhead Colliery

Overview

A Motherwell colliery off Airbles Road, worked from about 1860 by John Watson and from 1880 by the Glasgow Iron Company and its successor the Glasgow Iron and Steel Co., whose ironworks it supplied. Its Nos. 7 and 8 pits reached the Virtuewell coal at 207 metres; a shaft was being sunk to the blackband ironstone in 1923, two years before closure.

History

Parkhead Colliery lay at what is now Primrose Crescent, Motherwell. A coal pit is marked there on the Ordnance Survey of 1864, and John Watson Jnr worked it from 1860, and John Watson in the 1870s. In 1880 it passed to the Glasgow Iron Company, which became the Glasgow Iron and Steel Co. and held it until 1925, probably working the Airdrie Blackband ironstone at 90 metres as well as coal. Its pits Nos. 7 and 8 reached the Virtuewell, the deepest coal, at 207 metres.

The NMRS records single deaths through its working life: a fall of coal in No. 17 pit in 1900, a fireman who slipped through a fence at a mid-working and fell 36 fathoms down the dip winding space in 1902, an engine keeper scalded while blowing off a boiler in 1903. A mining contractor killed by a roof fall in January 1918 had just learned that his elder son had been killed at the front.

In May 1923 a sinker was killed while a shaft was being sunk from the Splint coal to the blackband seam. The colliery closed in 1925. The No. 8 shaft lies under a residential car park and No. 7 under grass on the south verge of Airbles Road.

Geology

Multiple coal seams from the Splint down to the Virtuewell at 207 metres, with the Airdrie Blackband ironstone at 90 metres.

Workings

Pits Nos. 7 and 8 (with No. 17 recorded in 1900), with rise and dip winding spaces and mid-workings; a shaft was being sunk from the Splint coal to the blackband in 1923.

Closure

Worked by the Glasgow Iron and Steel Co. Ltd until 1925.

What remains

The No. 8 shaft lies under a residential car park and the No. 7 shaft under grassland on the south verge of Airbles Road.

None recorded.

Redevelopment

Housing; the site of No. 8 shaft is a residential car park.

Recorded claims

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

• Parkhead Colliery was worked from 1860 to 1925. ¹
• It belonged to John Watson until 1880 and then to the Glasgow Iron Company and the Glasgow Iron and Steel Co. ^1,2
• Its deepest coal, the Virtuewell, lay at 207 metres, with the Airdrie Blackband ironstone at 90 metres. ¹
• In 1902 a fireman fell 36 fathoms down the dip winding space from a mid-working. ³
• In May 1923 a shaft was being sunk from the Splint coal to the blackband seam. ⁴
• A mining contractor was killed by a roof fall in Parkhead Colliery in January 1918. ⁵

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Scottish Cave and Mine Database: Parkhead Colliery (No.7 & No.8 Pits), Motherwell — Grampian Speleological Group: Scottish Cave and Mine Database
2. (primary) NMRS Coal Mining Accidents and Deaths: Parkhead, No.17 Pit, 1900 — Northern Mine Research Society
3. (primary) NMRS Coal Mining Accidents and Deaths: Parkhead, 1902 — Northern Mine Research Society
4. (primary) NMRS Coal Mining Accidents and Deaths: Parkhead, 1923 — Northern Mine Research Society
5. (secondary) Accidents 1915-1925 (newspaper reports) — Scottish Mining Website

Record created: 15 October 2026 · Last researched: 15 October 2026