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Kilmux No.3 Pit

NE of Bonnybank, Kennoway, Fife.

Mine (Coal & Ironstone), 19th Century.

A 50 fms-deep [92m] pit/shaft sunk to the Cardenden Smithy Coal (aka Six Foot Coal of Kilmux) & Lochgelly Blackband Ironstone. Accessed the central part of a modest complex probably mined by the longwall method, with radiating roadways off of a circular passage surrounding a large central pillar. The northern extent of the mine was largely dictated by a volcanic dyke. The shaft is now buried below a worked field.

See abandonment plan for mine layout.

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"Ironstone and coalmining operations, on a small scale, were carried out at Kilmux, about a mile and a quarter north-east of Kennoway, from the latter part of the eighteenth century, if not from an earlier date, the last coal-venture featuring a surface-mine in Whally Den having been abandoned in 1922. The grounds to the south and south-east of Kilmux Colliery also appear to have worked by a small colliery (Drummaird?) but few details are available other than a record of a No. 33 Pit, owned by the Glasgow Iron Company in 1873 (exact location not known)." [Fife Pits]

Alternative Names: Kilmux Pit, Kilmux Mine

Notes: Operated by the Glasgow Iron Co., abandoned in 1874. Proprietor: Robert Christie Esq. (or Durie).

This mine probably pre-dates the coal workings of the surrounding Kilmux Colliery, and according to the Fife Pits map is not associated with the Kilmux Day Level (although it would be in line with a hypothetical extension of it).