Scottish shale Scottish shale

Hopetoun No.6 (Glendevon) mines

Parish:
Kirkliston, Linlithgowshire and Midlothian
Local authority:
West Lothian
Seams worked:
Broxburn Shale
Closed:
1957
Current status of site:
Garage, workshop and private dwellings
Regional overview:
Mines in the Hopetoun area

hopetoun6mine1.jpg

Inclined adits

Serving Hopetoun Oil Works (latterly Niddry Castle Crude Oil Works?)

A substantial mine with three adits, whose workings ultimately linked underground with Hopetoun No. 35 Pit. Linked to Hopetoun Oil Works by standard gauge railway.

Oilshale was also produced from "Glendevon quarry" immediately after WW11 (output 55,669 tons in 1945, 23025 tons in 1946). It is uncertain whether these workings were related to Hopetoun No. 5 or Hopetoun No. 6 mine. Maps show an excavated area to the north west of No. 6 mine, although it is unclear whether this relates to oilshale working.

Shale-field: Winchburgh.

Mapped by the Ordnance Survey of c.1896, seemingly showing two adits diverging as they enter the ground.

  • Location & workings at Hopetoun No.6 (Glendevon) mines

      • Show seams:

  • Detailed maps
  • Drawings
      • Hopetoun6MineStat.jpg 194702.jpg

    Recent images

    P1010954.JPG P1010957.JPG P1010624.JPG P1010626.JPG
  • Newspaper references

      • At the west end of this area, near Glendevon, the Broxburn shale is at present worked by three mines which start from a common centre, one being driven down the dip slope and the other two slightly oblique, with the result that the working faces have and extension of two-thirds of a mile. This mine is connectied with the pit 72 fathoms deep at Trinlymire.

      Page 67, Oil Shales of the Lothians, British Geological Survey, First edition, 1906

  • External references

      • Coal Authority Mine Abandonment Catalogue No. 15100, showing workings in Broxburn Main and Upper Grey Shales, abandoned in 1957.
      • Agreement No. 356. Licence under the Explosives Act for a powder magazine at Hopetoun No.6 , August 1904. Young's Paraffin Light & Mineral Oil Company Ltd; Inventory of Leases, Agreements &c . BP Archive 215854.
      • Agreement No. 534. Registration of premises at No.6 mine, Hopetoun for keeping gunpowder, December 1913. Young's Paraffin Light & Mineral Oil Company Ltd; Inventory of Leases, Agreements &c. BP Archive 215854
  • Additional resources

      • Oral history transcript: Mr Archibald Fairley
      • Oral history transcript: Mr George Lyon

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