Scottish shale Scottish shale

Drumshoreland Muir pit

Parish:
Uphall, Linlithgowshire
Local authority:
West Lothian
Seams worked:
Dunnet Shale
Closed:
Perhaps closed 1901
Current status of site:
Paddock
Regional overview:

drumshorelandmuirpit.jpg

Type of working: Uncertain

Serving Roman Camp Oil Works (Perhaps)

The mines abandonment catalogue lists Drumshoreland Muir as working the Lower Dunnet Shales and closing in 1901. The precise location of this pit or mine is unclear; Geological Survey plan LSP 570 shows workings of the Lower Dunnet Shale in the Drumshoreland Muir area from Roman Camp No. 7 Mine, which operated between 1937 and 1951 and shows a shaft (see underground workings) marked either "air pit" or "old pit" 65'. It seems possible that this was the location of Drumshoreland Muir Pit. It is not shown on any Ordnance Survey map.

Shale-field: Pumpherston shale-field.

Mapped by the Ordnance Survey of c.1897.

  • Location & workings at Drumshoreland Muir pit
    • Show seams:

  • Detailed maps
  • Newspaper references
    • Half way along the road that that crosses (Drumshoreland) moor from the Pumpherston Oil-works to Lookaboutye, the Broxburn Oil Co. some time ago put down several bores and sunk a trial pit to ascertain the northern extension of this basin, which here proved to be both narrow and shallow. One one band of oil-shale was found which was identified as the equivalent of the Lower Dunnet seam.

      Oil Shales of the Lothians; British Geological Survey, 1906


  • External references
    • Coal Authority Mine Abandonment Catalogue No. 3039A, showing workings in Lower Dunnet Shales from Drumshoreland Muir, abandoned in 1901.