North Cobbinshaw mine

Parish:

West Calder, Midlothian

Local authority:

West Lothian

Ownership:

Mungle & Thornton

Seams worked:

Fells Shale

Opened:

c.1870

Closed:

c.1873

Current status of site:

Waste bing survives as a clearing in the conifer forest. Mineral railway now a forest path

Regional overview:

Mines in the Cobbinshaw area

Inclined adit

Serving Cobbinshaw North Paraffin Oil Works

A short-lived attempt to mine Fells Shale at an isolated site on the hillside above Cobbinshaw Loch. It appears that shale was transported from the mine to the Cobbinshaw North Paraffin Oil Works, about a mile distant, by a steeply-graded standard gauge mineral railway.

No record has been found of further shale mining in the area following closure of the Cobbinshaw North Paraffin Oil Works.

North Cobbinshaw Lime works, established c.1880?, and associated mine to the Hurlet Limestone, was sited south of the Caledonian Railway main line (55.800791, -3.579239), 1,800m distant from the shale mine. The limestone mine closed in 1911 (abandonment plan No.5625).

Shale-field: Cobbinshaw.

Mapped by the Ordnance Survey of c.1897, showing an "old shale mine"; presumably the entrance to the adit.

Location & workings at North Cobbinshaw mine