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Harrisons Level [Mouth]

Leadhills, Thief Slack Hass, Lanarkshire.

Site of mouth of crosscut level that extended NE to a shaft on the Harrisons Vein (aka Haddingtons). Portal now buried below hillslope near the Elvanfoot road.

"Access was via an adit on the right of the road just after Deneburn and going under the golf course. In 1853 an article appeared in "The Gentleman's Magazine" about the authors visit to Leadhills. This extract is about the Haddington Adit: "Near the further side of the pass we meet with the first drift or adit now in use, a low, dark, dreary looking hole supported by stout wooden beams at the mouth. Some five and twenty years ago this level was the scene of one of the accidents to which all mines are liable. Those in this district are happily free from fire-damp and other noxious gases, but serious and fatal calamities occasionally result from the roof of the passages falling upon the miners where they work. In the case of the level we are now examining the accident was not attended with fatal consequences, the fall having taken place between the spot that the men were working and the mouth of the adit. They thus escaped immediate injury and were got out in safety, after being immersed in total darkness with the water up to their breasts for the space of three days and nights"." [K. Ledger]

Alternative Names: Harrison's Level, Haddington Level, Haddington Adit

Notes: Given length approx, based on mine plan SP1807.

Hydrographic Feeds: None

Hydrographic Resurgences: None