Go to the Main Scottish Cave and Mine Database Search Page

Calderbank Colliery (Pits no. 1 & 2) [Calderpark]

Carronhall Drive, Calderpark, City of Glasgow (Lanarkshire).

Do not confuse with Calderbank, Airdrie.

2 coal pits and an Air Pit masrked on the 6" Geological Survey map, Lanarkshire, Sheet VII, 1874.

Pit no. 1 marked on Geological Survey map, Lanarkhire VII.SW, 1909.

Pits 1 & 2 marked on 6" OS map, Lanarkshire, Sheet VII.SW., 1938, between Ballieston Road andNorth Calder Water. The exact location of Pit no. 2 is not clear.

The site of Calderbank Colliery was reused to create Calderpark Zoo (also called Glasgow Zoo or Glasgow Zoopark). The zoo closed in 2003.

Formerly farm land worked by Cistercian monks, Calderpark was owned after the Reformation by the Stewarts of Minto, Lairds of Daldowie. Early in the 19th century the estate was acquired by James McNair, a Glasgow sugar merchant, who built a magnificent mansion in 1815 . He probably also planted some of the fine trees seen here (partly to hide the Calderpark colliery). The last owner of Calderpark Villa was Thomas Webster, a cattle dealer and merchant, whose grandson recalled the magic the place held for him as a visitor in the twenties. Peacocks patrolled an estate which included a walled garden across the river, a newer garden with greenhouses, an ice house, stables and farmhouses, with the rambling house itself standing near the tearoom swan pond in the centre of the Zoopark. The house itself was demolished in 1931 because of mining subsidence. Eight years later the Calderpark estate was purchased by the Zoological Society of Glasgow and West of Scotland. The founding director of the Zoo, Sydney Benson, MBE, opened it to the public in 1947. In 1972, the first of our special training/employment programmes commenced, when Britain's first Community Industry Programme started work at the Zoo. This was superseded in 1976 by Job Creation and a succession of different programmes under various guises have followed to the present day. Many thousands of West of Scotland residents have received temporary employment and training in this way. [McMahon]

Webster's Pond named after the family who inhabited the then nearby Calderpark House up till about 1931. The pond is not natural, it appeared over a period of time after the closure of Calderbank Colliery and is the result of subsidence due to coal mining. The surrounds were considerably enhanced in the 1970s by Youth Opportunities work programmes [the famous 'Yoppers'] supervised by the nearby zoo staff in a bid to include it as part of the zoo. [Robert Murray]

Alternative Names: None recorded.

Notes: Mansell Homes commissioned Alder Archaeology to undertake an archaeological desk-based assessment and walkover survey of a proposed housing development at the former Calderpark Zoo, Glasgow. The site had previously been occupied by an early 19th-century mansion, Calderpark, with its associated offices or steading, the successor to the earlier Newmill, and by the former Calderbank Colliery. Remains of features associated with the mansion were thought to exist. No remains earlier than the zoo or colliery were noted, except for a line of mature trees, perhaps part of the designed landscape. All areas of the site were extensively altered by the zoo and colliery, heavily overgrown by trees, or too steep to have attracted early human habitation. [Trove.scot]

Hydrographic Feeds: None

Hydrographic Resurgences: None