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Old Nitshill

Nitshill, Glenmuir Drive, City of Glasgow (Renfrewshire).

Mines (Ironstone/ Coal), Quarry.

Ironstone pit formerly located immediately W of the Victoria Pit (coal mine, later significant ironstone workings), and NE of Nitshill Quarry (sandstone). See Victoria No.2 abandonment plan (in refs) for detailed layout.

Alternative Names: Victoria Pit, *Old Pit

Notes: Ironstone Pit site now exists beside a playpark beside the Cleeves Road / Glenmuir Drive junction, based on MRA location. The Victoria mine site lies across the road, now an area of wooded derelict land. The quarry has evidently been filled in and built over by the Cleeves Quadrant residential area.

Shown as 'Old Pit (Ironstone)', W of a then-active Victoria Pit coal mine on OS 6" 1st Ed. map. Label shown E of site, presumably to avoid overlaps. The Victoria Pit is then labelled as an ironstone pit on the 1897 25" edition.

"By the mid-18th century, coal and other minerals were becoming important commodities and landowners and industrialists conducted extensive geological surveys to ascertain which minerals were present and at what depths. The surveys revealed that Nitshill and the neighbouring villages of Hurlet and Househillmuir stood on valuable deposits of coal, iron, aluminous schist, bituminous shale, and limestone...

... The New Statistical Account of Scotland, 1847, reported that Nitshill and Hurlet were at that time 'inhabited chiefly by colliers and other miners employed in the extensive works in their neighbourhood.' However, another major employer was the Nitshill sandstone quarry, which had high quality stone that was 'of such extent as to give employment to nearly one hundred men all the year round'...

Transportation was central to all industrial and manufacturing with the Levern Valley. Here, the railway and the Paisley and Glasgow Canal were key for transferring raw materials and products to and from Glasgow and Paisley. The whole area in and around Nitshill and Hurlet had become hugely important to the national industrial and manufacturing economy." [Nitshill Memories]

8 fig. coordinates are for the (original) old ironstone pit, determined using Mining Remediation Authority (MRA) map.