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Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland

The Story of Scottish Coal

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Go to the page that contains this image: Preston Island: remains of a coal mine, including a winding engine house and the ruins of salt pans.  Go to the page that contains this image: Map of Central Scotland showing the distribution of coal mines.  Go to the page that contains this image: View taken in 1900 of the erecting shop Anderson Boyes Flemington Electrical Works in Motherwell. The company specialised in the manufacture of flameproof electrical mining machinery.  Go to the page that contains this image: Pithead baths at Arniston Colliery in Midlothian, near Edinburgh, designed by J A Webster in the mid-1930s. This was one of many baths for miners built with the assistance of the Miners' Welfare Fund.  Go to the page that contains this image: Auchengeich Colliery near Glasgow in c.1950, which produced coking coal, and had its own coke ovens. A disastrous underground fire killed 47 miners in 1959, and the colliery closed six years later. 
Go to the page that contains this image: Gas holders at Granton Gas Works in Edinburgh, 1998. This was one of Scotland's biggest town gas works, and was a huge consumer of coal. Almost all the gas works has since been demolished.  Go to the page that contains this image: Bothwell Station in Glasgow in 1920, showing the two headgear of Bothwell Castle 1 and 2 Colliery.  Go to the page that contains this image: Sketch of the reconstructed third shaft at Barony Colliery in Ayrshire, which was completed in the mid-1950s, and included a power station designed to supply electricity to the National Grid  Go to the page that contains this image: An artist's impression of Scotland's first new 'Superpit', which was built to the design of Egon Riss, and which was opened by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 1958.  Go to the page that contains this image: A drawing by Egon Riss of Scotland's most successful superpit at Killoch, near Ochiltree in Ayrshire. 
Go to the page that contains this image: Killoch Colliery near Ochiltree in Ayrshire, which commenced production in 1960, and became the first Scottish colliery since 1947 to produce over 1 million tons of coal per year. It finally closed in 1987.  Go to the page that contains this image: Bilston Glen Colliery at Loanhead near Edinburgh, a well know centre of discord during the Miners' Strike in 1984. The colliery's surface buildings have since been completely demolished.  Go to the page that contains this image: Demolition of Scotland's last superpit, Monktonhall, near Edinburgh, destroyed with high explosives in 1977.  Go to the page that contains this image: View of Number 3 shaft at Barony Colliery in Ayrshire, taken in 1988 just before the demolition of the colliery's buildings.  Go to the page that contains this image: View of the 'A'-frame headgear of Number 3 shaft at Barony Colliery in Ayrshire, taken in 2004 several years after the demolition of the colliery's buildings. 
Go to the page that contains this image: View in 1999 of the pithead buildings at Lady Victoria Colliery, near Edinburgh. This model colliery survived after closure in 1981, and is now the Scottish Mining Museum.  Go to the page that contains this image: Lady Victoria Colliery, built in the mid-1890s. Its very large surface arrangements reflect a big change in British coal mining, during which mines were sunk deeper, and required much bigger engines and a much larger scale of operation.  Go to the page that contains this image: View of the pithead at Lady Victoria Colliery near Edinburgh, which has been preserved as part of the Scottish Mining Museum.  Go to the page that contains this image: Lady Victoria Colliery has now become the highly successful 'Scottish Mining Museum', and following major investment in the late 1990s, has evolved into a major tourist attraction in the area.   
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