Zetland Colliery

Overview

Zetland, at Helensfield near Clackmannan, was one of the Alloa Coal Company's pits and one of the smallest in this archive to survive into the National Coal Board years. Twenty-six people worked it in 1937. It grew rather than shrank under the Board, reaching 143 by 1954 on the Coalsnaughton Main and Mill seams, and closed in September 1960.

History

The Alloa Coal Company was founded in 1835 as a partnership to mine coal and ironstone on the lands of the Earl of Mar in Clackmannanshire, became a limited company in 1898, and was nationalised in 1947. Zetland was one of its pits, at Helensfield near Clackmannan. It was very small when the surviving returns begin: 26 people in 1937, only two of them on the surface. It reached 61 by 1940 and 71 at nationalisation in 1947, when it turned out 31,623 tons of industrial coal — a figure precise enough to suggest it was reported rather than estimated. Under the Coal Board it more than doubled, to 143 people in 1954, 120 of them below ground, working the Coalsnaughton Main and Mill seams for household and steam coal. It closed in September 1960. The Durham Mining Museum records no fatality here at all, which for a pit of this size and period is unremarkable but worth saying. The site has returned to farmland.

Geology

Zetland worked the Clackmannanshire coalfield, on ground the Alloa Coal Company had been taking coal and ironstone from since 1835. The seams named in the 1954 return are the Coalsnaughton Main and the Mill.

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

Workings

Shaft or mine details have not been found in the sources read for this record. The colliery was small throughout: two surface workers against twenty-four below ground in 1937, and twenty-three against a hundred and twenty in 1954.

Closure

The Durham Mining Museum gives the closure as September 1960.

What remains

The colliery site at Helensfield has returned to farmland.

Related mines

• Alloa Colliery — Another of the Alloa Coal Company's Clackmannanshire collieries, held under the same 1835 lease and the same company through to nationalisation.

Nearby mines

• Alloa Colliery — 1.6 km NW
• Castlebridge Colliery — 2.4 km E
• Devon Colliery — 3.9 km NW
• Bogside Colliery — 5.2 km S, Fife
• Alva Silver Mine (Silver Glen) — 5.6 km NW

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.

• The Alloa Coal Company was founded in 1835 as a partnership to mine coal and ironstone on the lands of the Earl of Mar in Clackmannanshire, became a limited company in 1898 and was nationalised under the National Coal Board in 1947. ¹
• The colliery employed 26 people in 1937 and 71 at nationalisation in 1947, when it turned out 31,623 tons of industrial coal. By 1954 it employed 143, 120 of them below ground, on the Coalsnaughton Main and Mill seams. ²

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Clackmannanshire's Mines — Clackmannanshire.scot
2. (secondary) Zetland Colliery — Durham Mining Museum

Record created: 11 September 2026 · Last researched: 11 September 2026