Riddochhill Colliery

Overview

A Bathgate colliery sunk in 1890 and worked for seventy-eight years, latterly for the National Coal Board. It employed 687 people at its peak in 1958, closed in 1968, and the M8 motorway was built over the site. Nothing of it is left to photograph.

History

Riddochhill was sunk on the edge of Blackburn, in Livingston parish west of Bathgate, and production began in 1890. Its first owners were Gavin Paul and Sons; William Baird and Company took it over in 1922, it passed to Bairds and Scottish Steel, and in 1947 it went with the rest of the industry to the National Coal Board. The Lists of Mines show a colliery that shrank almost as soon as it opened and then spent fifty years climbing back. In 1894 it employed 414 people, 378 of them below ground. Two years later it employed 133. It was back to 189 by 1900, 264 by 1910, and then held between about 230 and 260 through the interwar years before nationalisation and the postwar demand for coal pushed it up again — 369 in 1947, 500 in 1954, and a peak of 687 in 1958, against an average across its life of 541. It sold what the Lists call manufacturing and steam coal for its first fifty years, with coking, household and industrial coal added by 1947 and gas coal by 1954. It worked the Jewel and Main seams from at least 1905, the Balbardie as well from 1915, and by 1954 the Jewel, the Smithy and the Wilsontown Main. Output was 135,000 tons in 1947; the National Coal Board's report of 30 July 1948 records 420 tons a day and 105,000 tons a year, worked longwall, with 404 employees, two screens and a Baum-type washer by the Blantyre Engineering Company for cleaning the coal wet. Pithead baths and a canteen had been built in 1938, and there was a first-aid room. Every unit of the colliery's electricity came from Easton Colliery, three miles away and held here as a record of its own. In the 1950s skip winding replaced hutches, which is the last modernisation recorded on it. The colliery closed in 1968 and the workings were abandoned in 1969.

Geology

Riddochhill worked the Coal Measures of the Central Scottish coalfield in Livingston parish. The named seams are the Jewel and the Main from at least 1905, the Balbardie from 1915, and the Jewel, Smithy and Wilsontown Main by 1954 — a change of seam names over half a century that is itself the record of the ground being worked out and the workings moved.

Geological setting: Sedimentary Beds and Seams (well documented example)

Workings

One shaft, 289 metres deep, serving as the downcast, with a return mine driven at one in three for 69 metres as the upcast. Working was longwall. At the surface there were two screens and a Baum-type washer built by the Blantyre Engineering Company, and the winding engine was made by Wood of Wigan under order number AP269. Coal came up in hutches until the 1950s, when skip winding replaced them. Underground the coal moved on braes and dooks: the accident reports name a short cuddie brae in 1901, a cousie brae in 1910, and a direct haulage dook of about one in three in 1924, all of them worked by rope with men walking or riding beside the hutches.

Closure

The colliery closed in 1968 and the workings were abandoned the following year. The M8 motorway was afterwards built over the site.

What remains

Nothing survives. The M8 runs over the colliery, and when the route corridor for the M6 to M8 Fastlink was archaeologically evaluated in 1995 the site was recorded as one point on eighty-seven kilometres of alternative alignments. What is left is the name: Riddochhill Road runs through the housing on the edge of Blackburn and carries a narrow bridge over the River Almond.

None recorded. The site is under the M8.

Redevelopment

The M8 motorway, built over the colliery after it closed; housing at Blackburn on the ground around it.

Related mines

• Easton Colliery — Every unit of Riddochhill's electricity was supplied from Easton Colliery, which the National Coal Board's report of July 1948 records as the source for the whole site.

Nearby mines

• Whitrigg Colliery — 2.0 km SW
• Bathville Colliery — 3.8 km NW
• Addiewell Oil Works — 4.1 km SE
• Loganlea Colliery — 4.2 km S
• Hilderston Silver Mine — 4.5 km N

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.

• Production commenced in 1890; the colliery closed in 1968 and was abandoned in 1969. Its owners were Gavin Paul and Sons, then William Baird and Company from 1922, then Bairds and Scottish Steels Limited, and the National Coal Board from 1947. ^1,2
• One shaft 289 metres deep served as the downcast, with a return mine driven at one in three for 69 metres as the upcast. ¹
• The National Coal Board's report of 30 July 1948 gives an output of 420 tons a day and 105,000 tons a year, worked longwall, with 404 employees, two screens and a Baum-type washer by the Blantyre Engineering Company; pithead baths and a canteen dated from 1938 and there was a first-aid room, and all the colliery's electricity was supplied from Easton Colliery. ¹
• The average workforce over the colliery's life was 541 and the peak was 687, reached in 1958. The Lists of Mines give 414 in 1894, 133 in 1896, 189 in 1900, 264 in 1910, 258 in 1933, 369 in 1947 and 500 in 1954. ^1,2
• The colliery sold manufacturing and steam coal from 1894 to 1920, coking, household, industrial, manufacturing and steam coal in 1947, and gas, household, manufacturing and steam coal in 1954. The seams worked were the Jewel and Main from 1905, with the Balbardie added by 1915, and the Jewel, Smithy and Wilsontown Main by 1954. ^1,2
• Output was 135,000 tons in 1947 by the Lists of Mines, and 105,000 tons a year in the National Coal Board's report of July 1948. ^1,2
• Skip winding replaced hutches in the 1950s, and the M8 motorway was built over the site after closure. ¹
• The colliery's winding engine was made by Wood of Wigan under order number AP269, and was photographed there seven times by Professor John R Hume in 1968. ¹
• The colliery was recorded during an archaeological evaluation in 1995 of thirty alternative route elements, some eighty-seven kilometres in all, for a proposed road linking the M8 near Whitburn with the M6 and M74 near Douglas. ¹
• The colliery's accident reports name a short cuddie brae on which Peter Connelly was killed in August 1901 when the haulage rope broke, a cousie brae down which Thomas Curran was travelling in April 1910 when a runaway empty hutch crushed him, and a direct haulage dook of about one in three on which John Garvock was caught between a hutch and a girder in June 1924. ²

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (primary) Riddochhill Colliery, Canmore / National Record of the Historic Environment 132665 — Historic Environment Scotland
2. (secondary) Riddochhill Colliery — Durham Mining Museum

Record created: 10 September 2026 · Last researched: 10 September 2026