Gavieside No.3 pit

Two vertical shafts to the Raeburn shale, which probably served the Gavieside Oil Works

The history and identity of this pit is uncertain, but seems to be associated with Grange No. 3 Pit.

An area of the Raeburn Shale appears to have been worked from a shaft adjacent to Grange Oil Works (termed here Grange No. 3), and from two shafts near Briestonhill House (termed here Gavieside No. 3), which appear to have been linked to Gavieside Paraffin Oil Works by a tramway carried across the moss on a causeway. Neither Grange No. 3 nor Gavieside No. 3 are listed in "Mines and Pits Sunk", and only Gavieside No. 3 is listed in Mine Abandonment Catalogue - as working Raeburn Shale and abandoned in 1879.

It seems possible that the area of Raeburn Shale was first worked by John Raeburn of the Grange Shale Oil Works from Grange No. 3 Pit. On closure of those works in 1875, the West Calder Oil Company sunk two new shafts near Briestonhill House - Gavieside No. 3 Pit - to access the Raeburn Shale. These remained in production until the failure of the West Calder Oil Company. However, a note on Geological Survey plan LSP 578 indicates that the Raeburn Shale adjacent to Gavieside No. 3 was last worked in 1866 is at variance with this hypothesis.