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Cot Castle Ironstone Mine [1]

Stonehouse, Glassford Bridge, Cot Castle, Lanarkshire.

In c. 1864, a branch railway ran to Cotcastle Iron Mines near Stonehouse, Strathavon operated by the Coltness company. The railway crossed 'a deep and almost inaccessible ravine' on a six-arched viaduct above the Candor Water running about 1 mile SW past Stonehouse to Cot Castle on the Avon Water.

On a deep face of the brae, within a short distance from the lime kilns - on the same side of the Avon - mining operations are going on [c. 1864]: as also boring on the side of the water , where four men are incessantly plying the large apparatus, which with, by a slow process, they can draw from the bowels of the earth, samples of what it contains, so that its value may be judged afterwards by skilled mineralogy. A little further and we are led into dark cavernous-looking holes that run some quarter of a mile in, and some thirty fathoms from the surface. Here we are told workers were engaged within, preparing a main road and laying off rooms for others to follow. Into these (to us chambers of horror), we were invited to enter, and in hutches we were conveyed, through the kindness of the miners, to see them working in their dark abodes. [British Newspaper Archive, 28 July 1864]

Alternative Names: Cotcastle Iron Mine [1]

Notes: The construction of the railway viaduct created a considerable stir and provided work at a time when the weaving trade was depressed. The road from Edinburgh to Ayr past Stonehouse opened in 1826.

The Candor Water Viaduct now carries an unclassified public road over the Cander Water about 1.2km ENE of Stonehouse. The river here defines the boundary between the parishes of Stonehouse (to the W) and Dalserf (to the E).

Hydrographic Feeds: None

Hydrographic Resurgences: None