Landscape Legacies of Coal Mining

Dr Catherine Mills

It is not so long ago that coal had a place in everyday life in Central Scotland. At its peak in the post-war period the industry employed around 150,000 and produced around 15% of the nation’s total output.

Picture 2.png Rear of Lady Victoria Colliery, Home of the National Mining Museum Scotland, Newtongrange, Midlothian. © Julieann McHale

The local landscape of the colliery towns and villages were dominated by the bing (mining waste-heaps), the headstock, colliery buildings, the railway sidings and the associated housing, clubs and bowling greens. Rapid decline from the 1960s brought closure, demolition and subsequent repurposing and/or redevelopment of the colliery sites that erased much of the industrial archaeology of one of Scotland’s foremost industries. Although often hard to discern, visible traces of coal mining remain in the landscape today, ranging from sunken hollows, patches of colliery waste and piles of building rubble through to communication networks, reclaimed bings and repurposed buildings.

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The category B listed Devon Colliery Beam Engine, Fishcross, Clackmannanshire.

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Remains of the Meta Pit miners’ bath house, Fishcross, Clackmannanshire.

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The remains of the Ferryton Bing, located on the carselands between Kennet Pans and Clackmannan.

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Miners’ Row (repurposed for agricultural use) Auchinstarry, Kilsyth.

Together with post and undergraduate students from the University, I’m collaborating with local community groups and individuals, to produce an expanding series of curated heritage walks that narrate the story of Scottish coal mining through the medium of, and active engagement with, the disappearing landscape legacies, utilising a mix of industrial archaeology, historic maps, plans and images and oral testimonies. The walks are available as a free smart phone app and is available for Android and Apple devices (search Landscape Legacies of Coal on your app store).

The ‘coal app’ aims to provide a co-produced dynamic record of the rapidly disappearing landscape features and industrial archaeology of the coal industry, whilst increasing local cultural understanding of mining heritage, and of the social and economic significance of the industry.

It was originally funded by the Macrobert Arts centre (https://macrobertartscentre.org/) as part of a community heritage initiative based around the theme of coal and launched with two routes in April 2019. As more people have engaged sharing their own stories about Scotland’s once-booming coalmining industry, the number of routes has expanded to 12 over the past year during the last year, with a further nine in various stages of construction. The current walks live on the app include four that depict the chronological development and decline of horse-drawn coal wagon ways in and around Alloa; the story of coal mining and wider industrial history of Dollar; and venturing further afield an exploration of colliery housing and the associated social environment of Newtongrange in Midlothian. (See http://stir.ac.uk/2aj for route locations). The number of downloads of the app reached 1000+ in June this year.

For more information visit our website http://www.landscapelegaciesofcoal.com/ .We also have a blog ‘The Coal Bunker’ see http://thecoalbunker.stir.ac.uk/. You can also follow our activities on Twitter https://twitter.com/coal_legacies and Face Book https://www.facebook.com/landscapelegaciesofcoal/

If you fancy exploring the local landscape, want to engage with the local communities and are interested in mining/industrial history why not volunteer on the project during your four year at Stirling. No experience needed. We are a very friendly group. Contact me (Catherine) c.j.mills@stir.ac.uk

Join the project team and Catherine below on some of their activities over the past year.

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Catherine and PhD student Julieann McHale out at the site of Dollar Mine with retired miners John and Royston.

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Katharina Pruente, an UG history student, out with Murray Dickie from the Clackmannanshire Field Studies Society at Linn Mill, Clackmannan.

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Julieann, Katharina, Catherine and Lisa Snedden (MSc Environment, Heritage and Policy Student 2020) at Leadhills Mining Museum after attending the Mining History and Archaeology in Scotland: Towards a Research Strategy conference in October 2019.

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Matthew Roud (MSc Environment, Heritage and Policy Student (2019) finally locates the coke ovens at Plean.

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PhD Student James McKean, Catherine and project mascot ‘Princess Leia’ ground truthing the Dollar Route. (Princess Leia has been specially trained to hunt out coal, bings, shafts and derelict colliery buildings 😊).

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Katharina at Cherryton Brick Works, Clackmannan with members of the Clackmannan Heritage Group working on Points on Interest for the Linn Mill Route.

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MSc Environment, Heritage and Policy Student Rebekah Salem Dalgety (2019) get very wet working on the Gartmorn Dam Route.

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Princess Leia studying Acid Mine Drainage in the River Carron, Falkirk.

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Members of the Clackmannanshire Field Studies Group out at Gartmorn Dam, Sauchie, Clackmannanshire with MSc students (2019) standing on a small bing. The Alloa Coal Company, who operated most of pits, adopted early environmental practices, they screened their collieries with trees and re-used much of the waste material as was possible hence the small bing site.

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Catherine with members of the Sauchie Community Group.

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Matthew and Mr. Willie Lambie out at the site of Bantaskine Colliery, Falkirk.

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Julieann and Lisa find an old coal tub, whilst out working on the Twechar to Kilsyth route.

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Catherine finally reunited with ‘Princess Leia’ after weeks of lockdown out exploring the site of Roughcastle fireclay and brickworks site, Falkirk. The bing has been repurposed as a UFO landing site!