Rosehall Colliery

Overview

Robert Addie and Sons' big colliery between Whifflet and Bellshill on the south side of Coatbridge: a dozen numbered pits sunk from 1855, working nine seams of the Lanarkshire Coal Measures with over 1,600 people at its 1910 peak, and closed in September 1940. Its rows were notorious enough to reach Orwell, its 1934 explosion killed five, and its ninety-nine named dead are the archive's fullest record of what a large Victorian Scottish pit cost.

History

Rosehall took its name from the Rosehall (later Douglas Support) estate at Old Monkland, south of Whifflet. The Durham Mining Museum dates the colliery from 1855, though its named deaths begin in 1853, and lists the owners as Robert Addie, then Robert Addie and Sons, then Robert Addie and Sons Collieries Ltd, with John Smith as manager in 1894 and David Murdoch in 1900. It was never one pit: the museum places Nos 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11 and 12 pits at separate grid references across a mile of ground east of the Bellshill road, with Nos 13 and 14 returned separately in 1920. The seams were the classic Lanarkshire sequence, Drumgray, Ell, Humph, Kiltongue, Main, Pyotshaw, Splint and Virgin, with Virtuewell and Blackband added by 1915, and the colliery returned gas, household and manufacturing coal throughout, with fireclay in 1894 and again from 1910 to 1915 for Addie's own Rosehall brickworks at Souterhouse. Employment climbed from 841 in 1894 to 1,015 in 1900, 1,484 in 1905 and 1,642 in 1910, held near 1,500 through the First World War, and stood at 1,551 across Nos 13 and 14 in 1920. No. 7 pit's upper coal was abandoned in 1915. Between the wars the numbers fell: 1,101 in 1933, 791 in 1937 and 763 in 1940, the year the museum records the colliery closing in September. The Rosehall Rows, four long parallel rows of single-storey houses running downhill from Whifflet, housed the colliery's families and were condemned in the 1910 housing inquiry as 'a wilderness of single- and double-roomed houses' without even rhones to carry the rain off the roofs; Coatbridge Town Council's 1924 clearance scheme replaced them with 200 new houses, and North Lanarkshire Museums note that the rows found their way into an early edition of Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier in 1937 as an example of bad workers' housing. The museum names ninety-nine people killed at Rosehall between 1853 and 1940. Most were the ordinary deaths of a big pit, falls of roof and coal, runaway hutches, men caught at the shaft; among them are a bottomer killed in 1859 when the engineman lifted the cage without a signal, a fireman whose relit safety lamp fired gas in 1904, a sixteen-year-old electrocuted at a switchboard in 1910, and a roadsman who died of blood poisoning from a nail in 1922 because no first aid was given. Three incidents killed more than one man at once: a fall of roof in No. 10 pit in January 1874 that killed Alexander Mace, his son Robert and Peter Duffy; the explosion of 14 August 1934 in the Blair section of No. 10, which killed five (see Disasters, below); and a fall of roof on 31 October 1940 that killed Patrick Cavanagh and William McGuiness a month after the colliery's recorded closure.

Geology

Lanarkshire Coal Measures: the Drumgray, Ell, Humph, Kiltongue, Main, Pyotshaw, Splint, Virgin and Virtuewell coals, with the Blackband ironstone seam returned in 1915 and fireclay worked alongside the coal.

Geological setting: Sedimentary Beds and Seams (historical documentary reference)

Workings

A dozen numbered pits spread over about a mile, worked as one colliery. Longwall faces with coal-cutting machines by the 1930s, self-acting inclines and endless-chain haulage on the dooks, electric power underground by 1903. The 1934 explosion happened where a cutting machine in the Blair section of No. 10 pit tapped into old workings.

Closure

The Durham Mining Museum records closure in September 1940, when 763 people were still employed; two men were killed by a fall of roof there on 31 October 1940, so some working or salvage continued. No account of why it closed has been found.

What remains

Historic Environment Scotland's 2001 survey of the Douglas Support estate found that Rosehall Pits 3 and 12 had largely been landscaped and reclaimed, with fragments of the former mineral railway network surviving in the surrounding landscape; the site is now the Rosehall industrial estate and housing south of Whifflet.

Landscaped pit sites and fragments of the mineral railways; the rows were cleared from 1924.

Nearby mines

• Tannochside Colliery — 1.0 km SW
• Carnbroe Colliery — 1.3 km NW
• Milnwood Colliery — 2.4 km SE
• Bothwell Castle Colliery — 3.5 km SW, South Lanarkshire
• Hamilton Palace Colliery — 3.6 km S, South Lanarkshire

Straight-line distance, within 15 km. Show on the map.

Disasters & major incidents

• Rosehall Colliery explosion, 1934
  14 August 1934 · Explosion · 5 fatalities
  At about two o'clock on the morning of 14 August 1934 firedamp exploded in the Blair section of the main coal seam in No. 10 pit, Rosehall Colliery, where nine men were coal-cutting on the night shift. Six were terribly burned; five of them died in Glasgow Royal Infirmary over the following week. Their workmates carried them half a mile to the shaft through afterdamp before the Coatbridge rescue brigade arrived. A fatal accident inquiry followed, and in March 1935 the acting manager was fined for failing to provide two means of egress and for not reporting an earlier ignition of gas.

Recorded claims

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

• The Durham Mining Museum dates Rosehall Colliery 1855 to September 1940 under Robert Addie, Robert Addie and Sons and Robert Addie and Sons Collieries Ltd, and lists Nos 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12 and 13 pits, with Nos 13 and 14 returned separately in 1920. ¹
• 841 employed in 1894, 1,015 in 1900, 1,484 in 1905, 1,642 in 1910, 1,481 in 1915, 1,551 across Nos 13 and 14 in 1920, 1,101 in 1933, 791 in 1937 and 763 in 1940. ^1,2
• Gas, household and manufacturing coal from the Drumgray, Ell, Humph, Kiltongue, Main, Pyotshaw, Splint, Virgin, Virtuewell and Blackband seams, with fireclay in 1894 and 1910–15 for the Rosehall brickworks. ^1,3
• Ninety-nine deaths are named between 1853 and 1940, including three multiple-fatality incidents: 19 January 1874 (three, fall of roof), 14 August 1934 (five, explosion) and 31 October 1940 (two, fall of roof). ^1,4
• The Rosehall Rows were condemned in the 1910 housing inquiry, replaced under a 1924 clearance scheme of 200 houses, and cited in an early edition of Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier (1937). ^5,6
• A 2001 survey found Pits 3 and 12 largely landscaped and reclaimed, with fragments of the mineral railway network surviving. ⁷

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Rosehall Colliery — Durham Mining Museum — Durham Mining Museum
2. (secondary) Robert Addie and Sons Collieries Ltd. — Durham Mining Museum — Durham Mining Museum
3. (secondary) Rosehall — Scotland's Brick and Tile Manufacturing Industry — Scottish Brick History
4. (secondary) Rosehall 1934 — Scottish Mining Website — Scottish Mining Website
5. (secondary) Old Monkland Area Housing — Scottish Mining Website — Scottish Mining Website
6. (secondary) Rows & Squares 2: the Monklands & Glenboig — North Lanarkshire Museums — North Lanarkshire Museums
7. (primary) Rosehall Estate — Canmore / trove.scot (NS76SW 150) — Historic Environment Scotland

Record created: 12 September 2026 · Last researched: 12 September 2026