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Balquhatstone Colliery
Coke Oven(S) (19th Century)
Site Name Balquhatstone Colliery
Classification Coke Oven(S) (19th Century)
Canmore ID 84091
Site Number NS87SE 20.01
NGR NS 8630 7247
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/84091
- Council Falkirk
- Parish Slamannan
- Former Region Central
- Former District Falkirk
- Former County Stirlingshire
Measured Survey (11 August 1992)
RCAHMS surveyed the coke kilns at Balquhatstone Colliery on 11 Aug 1992 at a scale of 1:500, with the resultant plan redrawn in ink.
Field Visit (28 July 1992)
NS87SE 20.01 862 724
The remains of this coke works lie about 400m ENE of Balquhatstone Mains steading, on the S side of the former Slamannan Railway. The site is depicted on the 1st edition of the OS 25-inch map (Stirlingshire 1864, sheet xxxv.6) which shows at least four banks of ovens, a smithy, a timber yard and a shaft all linked by sidings to the Slamannan Railway and also to coal mines to the SW and to the E (NS87SE 20.02 and 20.03). The site had been abandoned by the date of the 2nd edition of the OS 6-inch map (Stirlingshire 1899, sheet xxxv), but the remains depicted point to some expansion of the site in the late 19th century: at least one extra oven had been added, and extensive spoil tips had developed around the site.
The site is now given over to rough grazing, and parts of it are overgrown, but the general layout can still be appreciated. Six, possibly seven, banks of ovens survive, all but one of which are depicted on the 1st or 2nd edition maps (ibid). The robbed foundations of the L-shaped smithy can be traced, as can the lines of several stretches of railway siding. At the NE edge of the site there is a possible clamp, consisting of a U-shaped earthwork measuring 7m from N to S by 6.8m from E to W internally, open to the N and set into higher ground at the rear. To the N and W of the site there are large areas of spoil, and amongst the tips to the W there is a small rectangular brick building.
The best-preserved ovens are at the E edge of the site, where there are four banks of kilns, parallel to one another and spaced about 10m apart. Each bank measures up to 35m in length and 6.3m in breadth and stands up to 0.9m high. Running along each side of the westernmost two there are the remains of low banks about 1m wide; these probably supported the short lengths of railway which are depicted on the 1st edition map (ibid) running along both sides of each bank. The site is overgrown, but some of the ovens are visible as shallow hollows set in pairs, back to back: on one of the longer banks there were at least seven pairs, and there may have been more. Only at the S end of the easternmost bank are any of the brick linings of the ovens visible, and even here the remains are fragmentary, though enough is exposed to establish that each oven had a diameter of about 2.8m.
(CSW 4459)
Visited by RCAHMS (SDB) 28 July 1992
