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Basket Mine [Ironstone Pit]

Blantyre, Basket, Lanarkshire.

Ironstone Pit, mid-19th cent.

Shaft buried below worked field, broadly central to extensive area of ironstone workings of the Basket Mine which were also worked from another ironstone pit across a fault to the S [site #7628]. These workings were also accessed by a long adit road from the E bank of the Rotten Calder [site #11161], & were bound to the W by an outlet level [#11160] along the Rotten Calder. See mine plan (S4843) for mine extent.

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From the (New) Statistical Account of Scotland: "At Blackcraig, near Calderwood, on the borders of the parish [Blantyre], seventeen seams of ironstone may be counted, the one above the other; a sight, it is believed, not to be met with anywhere else in the world. Ironstone is wrought in the Basket mines, the mouths of which are in Kilbride ; but the beds of minerals run into the parish of Blantyre.

The upper seam, called No. 1, consists of a small band about 6 inches thick. No. 2 is about 7 inches thick, and, like all the other seams, lies in small bands or joints like flags of pavement. Between this and the upper band the seams of limestone above alluded to occur, and about 10 feet of blaes (slate clay and bituminous shale,) full of ironstone balls. No. 3 is from 4 to 14 inches thick; - its average thickness may be about 10 inches. There is a good seam of balls between this seam and No. 2, and from 4 to 6 feet of blaes. Beneath No. 3 there is a seam called the Lunker band, which consists of great balls lying in no regular position. But the richest seam of all is that called the Whitestone, 25 fathoms below No. 3; like it, this seam lies in joints, and is of the same thickness. Clay dikes intersect the mines in different directions which always throw the metals up or down, in proportion to their thickness. A white sort of substance, like cranreuch or hoar-frost, which almost melts away when grasped in the hand, is also occasionally found adhering to the roof and sides of the mines. This is an efflorescence of alumina, and is found in various parts of Europe in aluminous schist."

Alternative Names: None recorded.

Notes: Given coordinates taken from 1864 OS map (labelled as 'Old Pit (Ironstone)'.

Margin of workings close to shaft was surveyed in 1852.

Hydrographic Feeds: None

Hydrographic Resurgences: None