Scottish shale Scottish shale

Cobbinshaw South No.28 mine

Parish:
West Calder, Midlothian
Local authority:
West Lothian
Seams worked:
Fells Shale
Opened:
1883
Closed:
1885 - subsequently reopened as Cobbinshaw No. 5
Current status of site:
Moorland, collapsed entrance to adit, and some building foundations still exist
Regional overview:

cobbinshaw5mine1.jpg

Inclined adit

Serving Addiewell Chemical Works (Shale presumably transported by main line railway)

Young's Paraffin Light & Mineral Oil Company Ltd purchased the mineral rights for Cobbinshaw shale-field c.1880, following the collapse of West Calder Oil Company Ltd. Young's worked shale at No. 28 Mine between 1883 and 1885. Evidence on the ground suggests that shale was transported down an inclined haulage to the Cobbinshaw brach, where some form of gantry allowed hutches of shale to be discharged into standard gauge wagons below. Mineral rights were later sold to the Caledonian Mineral Oil Company Ltd, who from 1890 developed the workings as their Cobbinshaw Mine.

See Cobbinshaw No. 5 Mine for information on the subsequent history of the site.

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