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Steelend
Colliery (Post Medieval), Ironstone Mine (Post Medieval)
Site Name Steelend
Classification Colliery (Post Medieval), Ironstone Mine (Post Medieval)
Canmore ID 79106
Site Number NT09SW 55.02
NGR NT 0466 9291
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/79106
- Council Fife
- Parish Saline
- Former Region Fife
- Former District Dunfermline
- Former County Fife
Field Visit (9 October 1991)
NT09SW 55.02 046 929
The extensive remains of mineral extraction lie some 400m to the W of Saline Valley Colliery Pit No.3. It is depicted on the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Fife and Kinross, 1856, sheet xxix) as 'old pit' and on the 2nd edition of the OS 6-inch map, (Fifeshire,1896, sheet xxxiii NW), as 'coal pit' and 'old shafts'.
A tramroad from Pit No.3, which runs along the foot of the slope to the coal mine (Cleish91 61-2), disappears beneath a spoil dump on the S side of the northernmost of these workings; at this point there are also the foundations of a brick building on its N side.
Amongst the spoil dumps to the S, some of which contain massive pieces of clinker, there are traces of a shaft which has been filled (NT 0466 9291), but has subsequently subsided. A square-shaped hollow overgrown with reeds lies immediately to the NW, possibly indicating the site of the boiler depicted on the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (ibid) and a scarp marking the lower edge of another tramroad is visible immediately to the S. The latter disappears in the surrounding spoil dumps. To the SE there is a fan-shaped spoil dump with well-defined tip runs.
The 1st edition map (ibid) depicts another ironstone mine in this area, but its site is buried beneath the spoil dumps associated with the later mining activity. The sites of two other mines are also depicted to the E of the major dumps. One, an ironstone mine (NT 0490 9299), is visible as a vague hollow and the other (NT 0476 9302), as a low mound; both are overlain by rigs.
To the W of the dumps there appear to be two more mines. One (NT 0478 9301), is marked by a water-filled shaft at the E end of the tramroad leading to the mine to the W (NT09SW 55.04); downslope to the S from it there is evidence of subsidence, beyond which a large trench has been cut into the slope (NT 0479 9294), either marking the mouth of a drift mine, or simply an opencast working. The second mine (NT 0475 9290), lies a little further to the SW, its entrance brick lined, with a partly collapsed concrete roof. The spoil dumps to the S have partly buried a trench which may mark the entrance of an earlier drift mine.
(Cleish91 22-7, 510-11)
Visited by RCAHMS (SPH) 9 October 1991.
