Portland Colliery

Overview

A group of pits worked as one colliery between Kilmarnock and Hurlford in Ayrshire by the Portland Colliery Company, with Allan Gilmour as managing director and Daniel Gilmour as manager. Its shafts included the Nursery (No. 5), the Wellington (No. 4) at Crookedholm, Kirkstyle at the lower end of Kilmarnock and the Mersey on the west side of the burgh, and a brickworks stood on the No. 4 pit site making fire and composition bricks. Firedamp exploded in the Nursery Pit in 1900, killing six, and again in Kirkstyle Pit in 1925, killing five — two of them in an attempted rescue for which the Carnegie Hero Fund made posthumous awards.

History

A coal pit is marked on the 1856 map at the site the Portland Brickworks would later occupy, on the Crookedholm side of the Irvine Water opposite the Portland Ironworks. The ironworks themselves had started in 1846 and worked intermittently until the Eglinton Iron Company took them over in 1864, running five blast furnaces until 1890 — and it was that trade the colliery grew up beside. By the 1890s the pits were held by the Portland Colliery Company, Limited, of which Allan Gilmour was managing director and Daniel Gilmour the colliery manager. The company employed 108 men below ground and 19 above in 1894 and 119 and 21 in 1896. The Directory of Clayworkers for 1901 lists the Portland Colliery Company Limited at Portland Colliery and Brickworks, Kilmarnock, making compositions and fire bricks, with the telegraphic address “Portland, Hurlford”. The brickworks kept making bricks until after 1900 but had gone from the map by 1938, on which the colliery is still marked. The colliery worked the main coal seven feet thick by stoop and room, with the No. 5 or Nursery Pit as downcast and the No. 4 or Wellington Pit, a thousand yards away, as upcast. A fire caused by spontaneous combustion some years before 1900 had forced the Hurlford section to be shut off behind stoppings in each of the two mines. About a month before the 1900 explosion, one of those stoppings in the Dook Mine was breached and the old workings gave off firedamp. On 17 August 1900 an explosion in the Nursery Pit killed six men. A quarter of a century later the company was still working the Kirkstyle Pit at the lower end of Kilmarnock, whose pithead overlooked the Kilmarnock Cricket Club ground, along with the Mersey Pit on the west side of the burgh and the Wellington at Crookedholm. On the night of 18 January 1925 an explosion of gas in the McNaught Major section of Kirkstyle Pit killed five, and the manager and under-manager were prosecuted and fined over the ventilation of the working place.

Geology

Coal Measures of the Ayrshire coalfield. The Kirkstyle Pit’s shaft had levels at 64 fathoms to the McNaught seam, 70 fathoms to the Tourha’ and 81 fathoms to the Major, though only the two upper levels were being worked in 1925; a section of the Major coal was reached from the McNaught level and was known for that reason as the McNaught Major. The seam worked at the Nursery Pit in 1900 was a main coal seven feet thick. Faulting mattered underground: the 1925 explosion began at a fault four yards into a working place, where firedamp had been accumulating and being cleared for five days.

Workings

Several shafts worked as one colliery. The Nursery (No. 5) was the downcast and the Wellington (No. 4) at Crookedholm, a thousand yards off, the upcast; Kirkstyle and Mersey pits lay at the lower end and west side of Kilmarnock. Stoop and room was the method in both the seams described, and at Kirkstyle in 1925 the stoops had not begun to be drawn — the workings were all in the solid. Oldham electric cap lamps were used at the face there with flame safety lamps kept for the firemen and gas testing, while at the Nursery in 1900 naked lights were customary in the pit and safety lamps used only where old workings lay near. Brattice cloth carried air the last two hundred yards to some faces, helped by a hand-cranked fan. A brickworks on the No. 4 pit site made fire and composition bricks.

Closure

No closure date has been established. The colliery is still marked on the 1938 map, by which time the brickworks had gone, and no source reached records when the pits stopped work.

What remains

The pits and the brickworks are gone. Old workings are still visible in the ground between Hurlford and Galston, and the Portland name survives locally in Portland Row at Hurlford, where two of the men killed in 1925 lived.

None identified at the pitheads; old workings survive in the ground east of Hurlford.

Disasters & major incidents

• Portland Colliery, Kirkstyle Pit explosion
  18–19 January 1925 · Explosion · 5 fatalities
  Three men went into a working place in Kirkstyle Pit at the start of the Sunday night shift and firedamp exploded, setting off canisters of Bobbinite left in the mine over the weekend. The fireman and a shaftman went into the smoke after them and did not come out. All five died of carbon monoxide poisoning. The manager and under-manager were prosecuted over the ventilation of the place, and the Carnegie Hero Fund made posthumous awards to the two would-be rescuers.

Recorded claims

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

• The colliery was the property of the Portland Colliery Company, Limited, with Allan Gilmour as managing director and Daniel Gilmour as manager of the colliery. ^1,2
• The company returned 108 men below ground and 19 above at Portland, Hurlford, in 1894, and 119 below and 21 above in 1896. ²
• The No. 5 or Nursery Pit was the downcast and the No. 4 or Wellington Pit, a thousand yards away, the upcast; in 1925 the company also worked the Kirkstyle Pit at the lower end of Kilmarnock and the Mersey Pit on the west side of the burgh. ^3,1
• A coal pit is marked on the 1856 map at the site of the later Portland Brickworks, which stood on the No. 4 pit site and made bricks until after 1900; the 1901 Directory of Clayworkers lists the Portland Colliery Company Limited making compositions and fire bricks there. The 1938 map still shows the colliery but no longer the brickworks. ⁴
• The Kirkstyle shaft had levels at 64 fathoms to the McNaught seam, 70 fathoms to the Tourha’ and 81 fathoms to the Major, of which only the two upper levels were working in 1925. ³
• Six men were killed by an explosion in the Nursery Pit on 17 August 1900: John Gemmell senior and his son John, Andrew Johnstone, James Turnbull, John Todd and Boyd Cummock, the last of them dying on 24 August. ¹

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (primary) Nursery Pit, Kilmarnock, 17 August 1900 — Scottish Mining Website
2. (secondary) Portland Colliery Co., Ltd. — Durham Mining Museum
3. (primary) Portland Colliery, 19 January 1925: Inspector of Mines report and newspaper accounts — Scottish Mining Website
4. (secondary) Portland Colliery Brickworks, Crookedholm, Hurlford, Kilmarnock — Scotland's Brick and Tile Manufacturing Industry

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