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Valleyfield / Kinneil Mine Workings

Low Valleyfield, Dunfermline, Fife.

A vast coal mine complex that extends (or at least extended) beneath the Firth of Forth from Valleyfield in West Fife to the Kinneil Colliery at Bo'ness. The two mine complexes were joined in 1965.

A remarkable feat of engineering, the 15ft by 10ft winding tunnel was ground in the early 1960s. For the first time in history, four months before the much-celebrated Forth Road Bridge was officially opened, it was possible to walk directly from the Lothians to Fife through five hot, dark kilometres deep underground.

The Valleyfield Coal Preparation Plant had been condemned by the Mines Inspectorate and with just six months to find an alternative, the colliery was facing closure. The idea was to connect Valleyfield with Kinneil because the preparation plant there was relatively new and had all the mod cons available at the time'. Valleyfield remained operational for another 14 years, with the coal transported underground and processed at Kinneil until its closure. Today the tunnel, which for two decades allowed people to walk shore to shore under the Forth, is largely forgotten, with many outside of the mining community unaware it ever existed. [Scottish Field]

The Valleyfield pit was also connected to the coal mine workings at Longannet (approx 6km further west) that closed in 2002 and was the last deep mine of any significance in Scotland.

Alternative Names: Valleyfield Colliery, Low Valleyfield Coal Works, Kinneil Colliery

Notes: Given coordinates are for Valleyfield Colliery Pit No.2, which was deepened to 686m in 1950s reconstruction. Given length is the approx. measured distance between the Valleyfield and Kinneil pitheads, and excludes the connection to Longannet.

Valleyfield was said to produce the best coking and navigation coal in Scotland. Reconstructed in 1930s, at which time ponies were replaced by mechanised haulage. Valleyfield House was demolished in 1941 to build the miners' village of High Valleyfield. [Canmore]

Both collieries have been completely demolished with their entrance pits covered and no trace left. The site of the pithead at Kinneil (closed in 1982 and abandoned in 1983) can be identified only by a circular concreted area in parkland (NS 9866 8121). A roadside memorial structure at NT 0098 8647 is all that marks the general site at Valleyfield that closed in 1978 and is now overgrown by woodland in the Valleyfield Ash Lagoons grounds (which took waste ash from Longannet Power Station when it was an operation coal-fired station until 2016). [I. Greig]

35 men were killed at Valleyfield Colliery, Fife on 28th October 1939 when shot firing caused an explosion of fire damp. [Scottish Mining]