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Cults Mine

SW of Cupar, Claybrigs, NW of Cults Hill, Ladybank, Fife.

Mine, Quarries (limestone), main mines 19th-20th Centuries.

Extensive surface workings along which are/were four main mine mouths, two of which are marked on Streetmap at NO 34057 08433 and at NO 35600 08819. The given coordinates are for the most central of these adits, labelled as 'mine' on the 1956 OS map, approx. 220m W of the Braeside of Cults buildings.

The distance between the mine's W and E extremities is c. 2.5 km, but the combined length of its inner adits and side tunnels, which form an underground maze in 'room and [elongate] pillar' form, will probably be in excess of 10 km. The main complex extends as far south as Upper Bunzion (house), and a subsidiary section extends as far south as c.NO335708.

The mine layout is illustrated in the abandonment plan (see refs).

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"The Cults Ridge is part of the Charlestown Main Limestone in the Hurlet formation, and the high purity of the limestone was well-known to its early inhabitants. The first Cults mines date from medieval times, when farmers began delving in the hillside for limestone: the stone was crushed then burnt in clamp kilns to make quicklime which, once slaked, was spread on the fertile soils of Stratheden. In old Scots, the area was called Quhilts, and there is evidence of a community from at least 1243, when a kirk was founded here. The earliest surviving workings at Cults are pillar and stall, and when Thomas Cochrane took over the mines in 1926, he noted that the Cults of Pitlessie limeworks, as he called it, had been going on for many hundreds of years. In fact it was known that lime was mined here from the eleventh century making Cults one of the oldest continuously-operated mines in Europe, until its closure in the 1980s...

By the early 1800s Cults consisted of two mines and two sets of lime kilns, the East Works beside Cults crossroads, and the West Works which lies half a mile along the road. Abandonment plans for the older parts of the Cults mine, and the newer Skelpie mine, reveal over twenty miles of passages; many now lost to `untopping', a rising water table, and collapsing inclines. Stone mines are often casually referred to as "labyrinthine", but Cults really does earn this description, because the older workings lack any sense of order and were driven to follow local geological trends, rather than an over-arching development plan. The seam dips southwards at roughly 6-7 degrees, following the sedimentary limestone band, and the mine drained to the south, following the Hurlet Limestone. Latterly, the southern ends of the drives acted as sumps, from which the mine was drained. Anecdotally, there is or was a drainage adit which also allowed workers who lived on the southern side of the Cults Ridge to walk through on their way to work" [Chalmers, M.]

Alternative Names: Cults and Pitlessie

Notes: Agent: W. Maxwell. James Martin, Cults Lime Works, Ladybank. Closed in 1965, then operated by Cults Lime Co Ltd.

Local kids lost in mine 1995.

See also Skelpie Mine [Database Site #8287]

The Cults Limestone Quarry and its associated works which occupy the N flank of Cults Hill extend for some 2.5km, and are aligned NE to SW to follow the limestone outcrop, with the major extractive area concentrated in the central section. In the mid-19th century, the limestone was worked from three separate quarries - Pitlessie Lime Works, Bunzion Lime Works and Cults Lime Works - but by 1895 they had been amalgamated into the Cults and Pitlessie Lime Works, with the former Bunzion and Cults Works being known as the West and East Works respectively. Several features of the quarry are of particular interest; large stone limekilns at the former East and West Works (NO30NW 113.05 and NO23NE 23.03); numerous well-preserved banks of clamp-kilns; limestone mines; and an extensive system of tramways which connects many of the mines and workings to the kilns.