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Torry Mine Tunnel [N portal]

Bluther Burn, Valleyfield, Fife.

Tunnel / adit, 20th cent.

Site of treated portal for tunnel driven into the woodland bank on the S side of the Bluther Burn. This was the N portal for the more southerly of two tunnels which transported coal to the Valleyfield Colliery yard from the Torry Mine, N of High Valleyfield [see site #10665]. The portal has been bricked up, but with a locked steel door hatch that allows access to a concrete-lined vaulted roadway (visible through three purpose-built eye holes). National Grid OS maps from the 1960s show surface mine buildings immediately adjacent to this site, & a (now-demolished) bridge across the Bluther Burn leading to the Torry Mine's 'Loco Level' to the N.

"Where the coal was transported in level mine to (diesel) tumblers, where it was tipped and taken by belt conveyor to tables at Valleyfield Colliery to be washed." [Fife Pits]

"... The development of Torry Mine, which is situated to the north of Valleyfield Colliery, will be completed and in production towards the end of 1954. One of the dip mines driven from the surface has made contact with the Blairhall Main seam at a depth of 72 yards. The driving of the companion mine to the surface is now proceeding.

The tunnel underneath the main Kincardine-Dunfermline public highway near Valleyfield Colliery has been completed. The coal will be belt conveyed from the face and loaded into two-ton mine cars, which will be hauled up the dip mine in sets of six by a 250 h.p. balanced rope hauler and transported along the level tunnel to Valleyfield Colliery by Diesel locomotive. The coal will be tippled into a 20 ton hopper and conveyed to the existing screening plant." [Dunfermline Press]

The site of the southern tunnel's S portal [#10670] is within woodland just S of the junction between the B9037 (Newmills to High Valleyfield road) and the road to Low Valleyfield.

Alternative Names: None recorded.

Notes: Labelled as adit on MRA map. This section of 'mine' is separated from the main Torry Mine complex by the Bluther Burn gully that required the coal cartway to briefly exit to surface.

The blocked N portal is located due N of a stepped concrete structure to the rear of the Newmills Telephone Exchange.

Given length approx.

Hydrographic Feeds: None

Hydrographic Resurgences: None