Archaeology Notes

Event ID 854860

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/854860

NT36SW 22.00 centred 3335 6355 and 3323 6397 to 3338 6320

NT36SW 22.01 centred 3344 6371 Lothian Coal Company Offices (Former SMM Visitor Centre)

NT36SW 22.02 centred 3340 6375 Gantry

NT36SW 22.03 centred 3336 6376 Time Office and Lamp Station (Former Cement Store)

NT36SW 22.04 centred 3336 6379 British Coal Archive (Former Colliery Workshop)

NT36SW 22.05 centred 3333 6376 New Visitor Centre (New Power Station and Old Power Station)

NT36SW 22.06 centred 3332 6380 Boiler House and Chimney (Original Boiler House)

NT36SW 22.07 centred 3329 6377 Dredger

NT36SW 22.08 centred 3327 6381 Fines Treatment Plant and Thickener

NT36SW 22.09 centred 3327 6377 Engine Houses Pithead Woodroad Stores

NT36SW 22.10 centred 3331 6374 Winding Engine House

NT36SW 22.11 centred 3327 6374 Headgear

NT36SW 22.12 centred 3327 6373 Mine Shaft and Railway Tunnel

NT36SW 22.13 centred 3326 6371 Pithead Building (Tub Circuit, Tippler Section, Picking Tables)

NT36SW 22.14 centred 3335 6367 South Elevator Conveyor System

NT36SW 22.15 centred 3328 6368 Dense Medium Plant

NT36SW 22.16 centred 3329 6368 Coal Elevator Shed and Hopper

NT36SW 22.17 centred 3330 6369 Old Washer Plant

NT36SW 22.18 centred 3330 6373 Smithy

NT36SW 22.19 centred 3340 6360 Central Workshops

The above subsectioning was adopted from the annotated birdseye view of the Scottish Mining Museum at Lady Victoria Colliery, Newtongrange, collection number E94228 PO.

For associated and adjacent mining village (miners' rows) of Newtongrange, see NT36SW 63 and buildings referenced individually therein.

Not to be confused with Scottish Mining Museum, Prestongrange (NT 373 736), for which see NT37SE 78.00.

Scottish Mining Museum

Lady Victoria Colliery [NAT]

OS (GIS) AIB, April 2006.

(Location cited as NT 333 636). Lady Victoria Colliery, Newtongrange. Sunk 1890-4 by the Lothian Coal Co Ltd. The surface buildings here are extensive, and are steel-framed with brick cladding or infilling. There is a very fine steam winding-engine built by Grant, Ritchie and Co Ltd, Kilmarnock in 1894, with 3ft 6ins (1.06m) by 7ft (2.13m) cylinders and Cornish drop valves. This is supplied with steam by a bank of seven Lancashire boilers. There is a tall circular-section brick chimney.

J R Hume 1976.

The Midlothian Coal Basin is shaped like a trough running approximately north-east to south-west. The Lady Victoria Colliery shaft was sunk to reach the deeper coals that its predecessors (Lingerwood, Bryans, Easthouses) could not work efficiently. The shaft itself sits between the outcrop and the floor of the basin.

The workings extended three miles (4.5km) to the east, almost to the village of Rosewell and almost two miles (3km) northwards to Eskbank. Lady Victoria Colliery was linked underground to the neighbouring Lingerwood Colliery.

An unusual characteristic of Lady Victoria Colliery is that it has only one headgear and one shaft.

Lady Victoria Colliery was connected to the Waverley Line (opened 1849), and was constructed with extensive railway marshalling yards and sidings. The colliery stopped shipping coal by rail in 1968, and the Waverley Line was closed in 1969.

Prior to the introduction of the Pithead Baths, in 1954, the miners came home dirty to a tub in front of the fire.

The miners would both start and finish their working day at the baths. Each miner had a clean and a dirty locker, which were situated on opposite sides of the showers. The pithead baths were demolished in 1986.

The 'Lady Vic Canteen' had quite a reputation locally as a good place to eat. This was probably a reflection of its good value plain home cooking (on an enormous scale) and subsidised prices. The canteen was contemporary with the baths

Information taken from Lady Victoria Scottish Mining Museum pamphlet dated 1991.

NMRS REFERENCE:

NMRS Library Cuttings

The Scotsman 8/2/92

'£5m project begins at Mining Museum - article.

(Undated) information in NMRS.

In March 1998 a detailed photographic survey of Lady Victoria Colliery was carried out by RCAHMS in partnership with the Scottish Mining Museum Trust, prior to a #3 million Lottery-funded development. This development project was completed in September 1999 and was referred to as the Phase 3 Development. It involved the development and conservation of parts of the pit-head building. The photographic survey itself focussed on the pithead area along with some more general views.

Visited by RCAHMS (MKO), January and March 1998.

(Location cited as NT 3327 6375). LADY VICTORIA Colliery (also known as THE LADY)

Location: Newtongrange

Previous Owners: Lothian Coal Company

Types of Coal: Gas, House and Steam

Sinking/Production Commenced: 1895

Year Closed: 1981

Year Abandoned: 1982

Average Workforce: 1,339

Peak Workforce: 1,765

Peak Year: 1953

Shaft/Mine Details: 1 shaft, 487m in 1948. When originally sunk, it was walled simultaneously, rendering it watertight. Originally 530m deep, it was the deepest in Scotland at the time, and was connected to neighbouring Lingerwood (NT36SW 43), preventing the need for a second shaft.

Details in 1948: Output 1,388 tons per day, 347,000 per annum. 1,080 employees. Campbell Binnie bash type washer, rewasher Baum-type, locally made. Canteen, first-aid room, ambulance. Electricity generated in own power stations, some sent to Easthouses Colliery (NT36NW 164). Report dated 15-08-1948.

Other Details: Named in honour of the wife of the Marquis of Lothian. Neighbouring Newtongrange village was built by the Marquis of Lothian to house miners to work the pit. Became showpiece pit of the Lothian Coal Company, with the largest-diameter shaft in Scotland at the time, served by a large Grant Ritchie of Kilmarnock steam winding engine. A bad fire in the winding engine house led to refurbishment in 1903. The steam winder was later powered by a boilerhouse re-equipped with 12 war-surplus Lancashire boilers dating from c.1920. Prior to the mechanisation of underground haulage, 120 ponies were employed underground. In the National Coal Board (NCB) era, the colliery also became a major engineering workshop centre for the Lothians area. Baths serving both Lady Victoria and Lingerwood (NT36SW 43) were opened in 1954, and a reinforced concrete heated walkway over the A7 trunk road connected them to the pithead. Following closure in 1981, much of the surface arrangement was rescued from demolition, and with the assistance of Lothian Region, was transformed into the Scottish Mining Museum, operating initially as a dual site with Prestongrange in neighbouring East Lothian.

M K Oglethorpe 2006.