Highhouse Colliery
Colliery (Period Unassigned)
Site Name Highhouse Colliery
Classification Colliery (Period Unassigned)
Alternative Name(s) Dalshalloch; Highhouse Industrial Estate, Headframe And Steam Winding Engine In House
Canmore ID 43627
Site Number NS52SW 29
NGR NS 54961 21602
NGR Description Centred on NS 54961 21602
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/43627
- Council East Ayrshire
- Parish Auchinleck
- Former Region Strathclyde
- Former District Cumnock And Doon Valley
- Former County Ayrshire
NS52SW 29 54961 21602
(Location cited as NS 549 217). Highhouse Colliery, Auchinleck, late 19th century. A two-shaft pit with steel-framed, corrugated-iron-clad surface buildings. There is still (1974) a steam winding engine on one shaft, built c. 1896 by Grant, Ritchie and Co Ltd, Kilmarnock, with two horizontal cylinders 20ins (0.5m) diameter by 4ft (1.22m) stroke, and a drum 10ft (3.05m) by 6ft 7ins (2.01m) wide. The engine has Stephenson's link valve gear, operating slide valves, and reversing is by hand. The head-frame for the steam engine shaft is if unusual design and was wooden until c. 1968.
J R Hume 1976.
Highouse Colliery and miners' rows are visible on vertical air photographs, (RAF 540/509, pt.1, 4140-1, flown 1951).
Information from RCAHMS (DE), February 2000.
(Location cited as NS5495 2173). HIGHOUSE Colliery
Location: Cumnock
Previous Owners: Bairds & Dalmellington Limited from 1931
Types of Coal: House and Steam
Sinking/Production Commenced: 1894
Year Closed: 1983
Average Workforce: 369
Peak Workforce: 467
Peak Year: 1947
Shaft/Mine Details: 2 shafts, No. 1 177m, No. 2 174m deep. Latterly, linked underground with Barony.
Details in 1948: Output 420 tons per day, 185,000 tons per annum, longwall and stoop and room working. 473 employees. 2 screens for dry coal, washing done at Barony. Baths, canteen and morphia administration scheme. Steam and electricity, none from public supply. Report dated 09-08-1948.
Other Details: In c.1890, a beam engine built in Bridgeton, Glasgow for Dalry Collieries, was moved to Highouse. It was subsequently transferred to Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh in the 1950s, and now can be seen at the Scottish Mining Museum at Lady Victoria Colliery, Newtongrange. One surviving winding engine (Grant, Ritchie & Company of Kilmarnock) and engine house dating from c.1896, and its associated headframe (dating from the 1960s when it replaced an earlier wooden structure) survive in situ within an industrial estate, and have been listed by Historic Scotland.
M K Oglethorpe 2006.
