Scottish shale Scottish shale

Dalmeny No.1 pit

Parish:
Dalmeny, Linlithgowshire
Local authority:
City of Edinburgh
Ownership:
Dalmeny Oil Co. Ltd. (1871)
Dalmeny Oil Co. Ltd. (1896)
Seams worked:
Broxburn Shale
Opened:
c.1870
Closed:
Date of abandonment not known
Regional overview:
Mines in the Dalmeny area

dalmeny1pit.jpg

Vertical shaft

Serving Dalmeny Oil Works

The location of Dalmeny No.1 Pit is still to be identified. Mines and Pits Sunk lists Dalmeny No. 1, 2, & 3 Pits, plus four air pits sunk in the Dalmeny shale-field. Mining plans mark the location of a number of shafts, but do not identify any of these as No. 1.

One possible candidate for Dalmeny No. 1, lay just north of Dalmeny Rows, and is marked as "Air Shaft" on the 1896 25" OS map. It is unusual in being associated with a substantial range of surface buildings, plus a small spoil heap, suggesting that the shaft might previously have been used for winding shale. Most of these surface building seem to have been cleared by the 1916 survey, although one might have formed the basis of the quaintly named Fans Cottages.

Shale-field: Queensferry and Dalmeny shale-field.

Mapped by the Ordnance Survey of c.1896, showing a range of buildings labelled "air shaft".

  • Location & workings at Dalmeny No.1 pit

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  • Detailed maps
  • Newspaper references

      • The extent and contents of the Mineral Field have been amply proved by Mineral Workings and Boring. The Mining Machinery has been completed so as to admit an Output of 200 Tons of Shale per Day, and, by a little further expenditure, this can be easily increased.

      From the Dalmeny Oil Company prospectus, printed in Glasgow Herald, 5th October 1871

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