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Cambusbarron Mine

Cambusbarron, Mill Road, Stirlingshire.

Limestone Mine below Gillies Hill.

Given coordinates are for the NE adit that was connected to the main Gillies Hill pillar-and-stall complex by a c.400 m-long access tunnel. This passage ends in a worked-out 'waste' section at the N end of the Murrayshall complex that extends as far SE as approx [NS 7774 9175]. The Gillies Hill Adit marks the NW extremity of the workings, & an mine air shaft is on the hill itself. See abandonment plan (in refs) for detailed mine layout.

Recent photos (2011) show large brick lined entrance passage running under road and housing then continuing as rock cut passage. Double possibly triple layer of brickwork coated with lime deposits (from lime mortar), reinforced in places with steel channels (possibly rails from mineral railway).

Alternative Names: Gillies Hill Mine, Murrayshall Limestone Workings

Notes: See also: Gillies Hill [Overview]

The stability of the brickwork section may be dubious in places (see David Walsh photos).

Gillies Hill is supposedly the hill from which the Ghillies or camp followers of the army of Robert the Bruce descended onto the Bannockburn battlefield.

The underlying geology of Gillies Hill is a layer of quartz-dolerite approximately 100 meters thick that is highly resistance to erosion and is a ready source of "whinstone" for road bed, sea walls, concrete aggregate and kerbstones. This overlies a Carboniferous sedimentary sequence in which is a 6' 2" thick seam of Hurlet Limestone (or Murrayshall Limestone).

The fairy hill in Cambusbarron was formed in the 1850s from the spoil from the limestone mine.

Hydrographic Feeds: Possibly from the same source as the Cambusbarron Boiling Spring.

Hydrographic Resurgences: Water from the mine may discharge into the Raploch Burn.