Woodside Colliery

Overview

A small colliery near Larkhall in the parish of Dalserf, dated from 1848 and worked by Wilsons and Clyde Coal Company before passing to the National Coal Board. About forty men worked its surface mines until July 1955.

History

Woodside Colliery lay near Larkhall in the parish of Dalserf, Lanarkshire, and is dated from 1848. Its early years appear in the inspectors' reports through accidents: in 1863 a drawer fell to a lower seam after a scaffold had been removed in the night without his knowing, and in 1875 a fifteen-year-old switch keeper was crushed on the engine plane, riding on a train against orders. The colliery worked by stoop and room, and roof falls killed men at the face in 1884 and 1885.

In the twentieth century it belonged to Wilsons and Clyde Coal Company Ltd. By 1948, under the National Coal Board, it worked from surface mines at 1 in 3, raising house and steam coal by hand-pick and machine cutting: 40 tons a day, 11,000 tons a year, with 37 employees. It had bar screens and a dross conveyor to the wagons but no washer, baths or canteen, only an ambulance room in the office. Its workforce peaked at 40 in 1954, and it closed in July 1955.

Geology

Lanarkshire coalfield: house and steam coal.

Workings

Shafts in the nineteenth century, worked stoop and room; surface mines at 1 in 3 by 1948, with hand-pick and machine cutting, bar screens and a dross conveyor.

Closure

Closed and abandoned by the National Coal Board in 1955, in July by the NCB list.

What remains

Unknown.

Redevelopment

Unknown.

Related mines

• Clyde Colliery, Hamilton — Collieries of the Wilsons and Clyde Coal Company.
• Douglas Castle Colliery — Collieries of the Wilsons and Clyde Coal Company.
• Glencraig Colliery — Collieries of the Wilsons and Clyde Coal Company.
• Lethans Colliery — Collieries of the Wilsons and Clyde Coal Company.

Recorded claims

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

• Woodside Colliery, Dalserf, owned by Wilsons and Clyde Coal Company, began production in 1848 and closed in 1955. ¹
• Woodside, Dalserf, is dated 1848 to July 1955. ²
• In 1948 it raised 40 tons a day, 11,000 tons a year, by hand-pick and machine cutting, with 37 employees, from surface mines at 1 in 3. ¹
• In 1863 a drawer at Woodside fell to a lower seam after a scaffold was removed in the night without his knowledge. ³
• In 1875 a fifteen-year-old switch keeper was crushed on the engine plane at Woodside. ³
• Its workforce averaged 38 and peaked at 40 in 1954. ¹

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Woodside Colliery (NRHE 132413) — Historic Environment Scotland (trove.scot, formerly Canmore)
2. (secondary) NCB Collieries - Scotland (Northern Mine Research Society) — Northern Mine Research Society
3. (primary) Woodside Colliery (LKS) — Durham Mining Museum

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