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Burntisland [Overview]

Burntisland, Fife.

Generic.

Mines (Oil Shale, Limestone, & Coal).

"In 1850, James 'Paraffin' Young had launched the West Lothian shale mining and processing industry. When his patent expired in 1864, there were plenty of budding entrepreneurs ready to accept the opportunity presented. Small shale mining operations sprang up in various locations, several of which were in Fife.

The Burntisland Oil Works were established in 1878 to mine and process the shale deposits in the lower reaches of the east Binn. These deposits formed the northern extremity of a shale bed stretching for 22 miles from Cobbinshaw in the Lothians.

The man behind this venture was George Simpson, a coalmaster from Edinburgh, with the other directors coming from Glasgow, West Calder and Pittenweem. For the first three years, the operation was on a fairly small scale. By 1881, there were only 36 employees. Some of these lived in the old Binnend Farm buildings, a few at Craigkelly and Newbigging, and most of the rest in Burntisland.

In 1881, however, the oil works were bought by a new company headed by John Waddell of Edinburgh. Rapid expansion followed. The mine workings themselves eventually reached 365 feet below sea level at their lowest point. The average daily output of shale was 500 tons, which yielded 15,000 gallons of crude oil.

The crude oil was refined on site, and the main products were burning and lubricating oils, paraffin candles, paraffin wax, and sulphate of ammonia for fertiliser." [Burntisland Heritage Trust].

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"Whinnyhall Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4 Mines, and Binnend Mine, were small surface-mines at the base of the escarpment of the Binn Hill, Burntisland, a short distance north-west of the Binnend School. An air pit is also thought to have been associated with the mines.Opened around 1878, the shale mines, which also wrought a small amount of low quality coal, fell into disuse in 1894. Coal was formerly worked in the Parish of Burntisland but few details have been uncovered" [Fife Pits].

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"A huge shale oil industrial complex was established at Binnend in 1878. The village of Binnend was created a few years later to provide accommodation for workers and their families. During the 1880s the shale oil works thrived and then went into a steep decline. Very little work was done after 1892, and the mines were closed in 1894. By then many people had left, but the village continued to be occupied until 1954...

... The works at Binnend included shale mines, retorts in which the shale was heated and oil extracted, and factories for the manufacture of oil and wax products. The products included sulphate of ammonia (a fertiliser), naphtha for making paint and rubber, burning and lubricating oils, and candles.

Detailed information about the four mines at Binnend is given in the report by Walter Stephen. The mines followed the oil shale underground, usually at an angle between 10 and 27 degrees, to such a depth that the furthest point of each mine was well below sea level. The seam would be excavated in successive rectangular areas known as stoops. The shale would be broken down by blasting, and after a stoop had been cleared its supporting walls would be removed until the roof collapsed." [Abandoned Communities]

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"The oil shale above the Burdiehouse Limestone at Binnend, Burntisland, was extensively worked by three mines, of which the longest extended northwards for a distance of 900 yds. The two principal mines were situated on the west side of a north-east fault, which ran through the mined field, and followed the shale, for the distance quoted earlier, from the mine mouths. The seam dipped to the N.N.W., the angle of inclination being at first 10o, but gradually increasing to 18o at the face, which lay about 700 ft. below the surface when operations were suspended. Two faults were crossed in these mines, running nearly due east and west, with downthrows to the south of about 26 and 8½ fathoms respectively. On the east side of the north-east fault, the shale lay on an anticline, a mine being driven along the ridge of this curve to the north-east, with a branch in an E.N.E. direction. The best shale was found at the bottom of this mine in the direction of Kinghorn Loch.

The works, which closed around 1894, manufactured crude and refined oil, "scale", and ammonium sulphate. The "scale" was made into candles in the factory at Kinghorn Loch a mile, or so, to the east.

At a later date, two trial pits sunk to 30 ft. and 41 ft. were also examined near Newbigging to the west of Whinnyhall, but the results of tests on the extracted shales, and lack of suitable rail transport to the Lothian oil refineries, led to no further steps being taken to develop this field.

Simpsons Mine is believed to have been a small mine at the base of the escarpment of the Binn Hill, Burntisland, just a few hundred yards east of Whinnyhall or Binnend Mine. The mine is thought to have wrought the outcrop of the Houston Coal. The opening date of the mine is not known but it must have been worked in the early-mid nineteenth century and probably fell into disuse around 1892 when the Whinnyhill Mine and the oil shale mines (see below) in the area were also closing down." [Fife Pits]

Alternative Names: None recorded.

Notes: Lengths are given in entries for individual caves.