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Field Visit
Date 16 July 1992
Event ID 746187
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/746187
NS86SW 58 centred 820 616
The remains of a series of mines and other workings survive on the hillside to the E of Goodockhill farmsteading. There are three ironstone mines, a clay mine, a reservoir, a dam, and the remains of a number of tramways, trackways, watercourses, pits and buildings, spread across a generally W-facing hillside in a band about 150m wide and measuring about 800m from N to S. In places these workings overlie traces of rig-and-furrow.
The 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Lanarkshire 1864, sheet xii) depicts three ironstone pits. None of these appear on the 2nd edition (Lanarkshire 1899, sheet xii), but the sites of at least two of them are still identifiable. The first is at NS 8204 6214, where there is an area of broken ground, scattered with recent field clearance, with a small bing to the SW, overlying traces of rig cultivation (CSW 4034). A trackway runs past this site towards the second mine, 250m to the SSE at NS 8213 6190 (CSW 4033). Here, there is a single bing, to the N of which there are two hollows, a sub-rectangular stance and short lengths of trackway. To the SE at NS 8215 6188 there is a large flooded hole, first depicted on the 2nd edition of the OS 6-inch map (ibid), and annotated 'Old Quarry' on the revised edition (Lanarkshire 1913, sheet xii, resurveyed in 1910). This may be a clay pit associated with the clay mines to the SW.
The remains of the third ironstone mine (CSW 4032), which was situated about 160m to the SW of the second, are less readily identifiable. A hollow, 1m in depth, at NS 8200 6174 may indicate the top of the shaft, and there is a possible tramway running to the NW, but there is no trace of the buildings depicted on the 1st edition map (ibid).
About 100m to the S of CSW 4033, at NS 8203 6163, there are the remains of Goodockhill Clay Mine (CSW 4282). This is marked on the 2nd edition of the 6-inch OS map (ibid) as an 'Old Quarry' (CSW 4281), but appears as a Clay Mine on the revised edition (ibid). The 1913 edition depicts four buildings and a bing within the former quarry, with a siding of the Caledonian Railway Drumbowie Branch to the W. The bing survives, as does another one to its N, and between the two are the brick foundations of a circular structure, probably a chimney. A tramway runs NE onto the hillside, passing a brick-built magazine about 120m from the mine, while another tramway runs to the SSE. The latter tramway is depicted on the 1939 revision of the OS 25-inch map (Lanarkshire 1939, sheet xii.4) running 800m to a pit on the Tillan Burn (NS86SW 63.00, CSW 4030). Both these tramways cross ground densely pitted with conical hollows, the result of roof collapse underground, which occur in a band about 80m wide and stretching for 400m to the SSE and NE of the mine; these may give some idea of the extent of the underground workings, at least those close to the surface. There are other hollows in the moorland to the N: some of these may be due to subsidence, though at least one, at NS 8221 6205 has an associated spoil tip.
About 550m NE of the clay mine, at NS 8231 6210, there is a rectangular building measuring 19.4m from E to W by 5m transversely within walls of mortared dressed stone 0.7m thick (CSW 4222). Its E end has been set towards a rock exposure into which an adit has been cut, and a drain runs out through the W end, which suggests that the building may have been used for pumping. From the building, the drain runs WSW for 60m to a small reservoir, before turning SSW for another 160m to NS 8216 6195 where there is a broken dam. These features were presumably associated with one of the mines described above, but it is not possible to provide a more precise context for them, beyond noting that the dam first appears on the 2nd edition of the 6-inch map (ibid).
(CSW 4032-4, 4222, 4281-2)
Visited by RCAHMS (SDB), 16 July 1992.
