Dewshill Colliery

NS86SE 26 853 639

Tip (disused) [NAT]

OS 1:10,000 map, 1992.

Dewshill Colliery comprises two coal mines set about 500m apart and connected by a tramway. They are depicted on the 2nd edition of the OS 6-inch map and on the revised edition of the same map (Lanarkshire 1899 and 1921 (resurveyed in 1910, sheet ix). These maps show Pits 1 and 2 at the E end of a railway branch line, a siding 500m short of the branch-end serving 'Duntillan Pit No. 3', and the connecting tramway. The register of NCB mines only records a pumping-station here from 1957 and specifically says 'never a coal pit' (NMRS MS 819); however, the Catalogue of Abandoned Mines records Dewshill Colliery Pits 1 and 2 as having been abandoned in 1926, but does not mention Pit 3 (Mines Department 1931).

The E mine (Pits 1 and 2) comprises a much reworked conical bing, various pit-head buildings (including a tiled bath-house reduced to its floor), and the concrete plinths for winding-gear. The W mine (Pit No. 3) is connected to Pits 1 and 2 by a tramway which is submerged in a pond in its middle section, but rises up to the pit-heads at either end, suggesting the use of a gravity-powered system to drive the trucks.

At the W mine (Pit No. 3) the pit-head is marked by two parallel sandstone plinths for winding-gear and a boiler which has been pushed into a hollow. To the N there are foundations for a building, and the spoil has been formed into two flat-topped bings which are cut through by a drain from N to S and by a railway-siding on the W. The mine is depicted on the 2nd edition of the OS 6-inch map (ibid) as 'Dewshill Colliery: Duntillan Pit No.3' and was still in use at the time of the revision of 1910 (ibid).

(CSW 4127-8)

Visited by RCAHMS (PJD) 31st June 1992

(Location cited as NS 8538 6390). DEWSHILL Colliery

Other Details: Redeveloped 1923, closed 1943. New shaft sunk by National Coal Board (NCB) in 1957 for pumping only.

M K Oglethorpe 2006.