Go to the Main Scottish Cave and Mine Database Search Page

Gass Water Mine

N of Gass Water, SW of Cairn Hill, Cumnock, Ayrshire.

Mine (barytes), 20th Century.

Extensive interconnected mine complex along a NW-SE trending Main Vein / West Vein and multiple near-parallel secondary veins. Up to 7 winding levels were driven along the Main Vein, and two along the more southerly West Vein. The complex, with a vertical range of >500ft on the Main Vein alone, had multiple entrance shafts including the Main Shaft (most southerly), and Jamieson No.1 / No.2 shafts. The 50ft deep Prospect Shaft at the northern end of the complex appears to have reached a short standalone level. Near the eastern end of the complex was the South Mine No.1 Adit (approx. NS 6634 2147), close to which was the lengthy No.2 Drainage Adit that drained to the south (825ft from adit mouth to West Vein). The No.1 Drainage Adit extended SW from the Main Shaft for a distance of 1130ft.

The subterranean sections probably post-date a series of opencast sections that followed the veins & still scar the hillside.

See abandonment plans (in refs) for mine layout.

Alternative Names: Gasswater Mine, Gasswater A Mine

Notes: Operated by Anglo Austral Mines Ltd. Closed in 1964.

Gass Water & mines in Ayrshire not Lanarkshire as previously recorded.

Headland Archaeology surveyed the remains of an aerial ropeway that formerly linked the Gass Water Barytes mine to its dressing plant prior to the commencement of opencast mining. The ropeway survives as a line of concrete pylon foundations (previously reported by CFA in 1996), which runs in a straight line for 3km SE along the N bank of the Gass Water from the dressing plant to the mine itself. The pylons were of tripod design, and the foundations comprise three iron rods set in square cast concrete blocks. These blocks form an equilateral triangle with sides 2.65m long, and the blocks measure 0.67m square and are of variable to provide a level foundation on sloping ground. These appear to have been cast in situ and, as a result, the state of preservation is somewhat variable. The Gass Water Baryte mine operated between 1917 and 1964 (Macgregor et al1944, Craig 1991) and was the largest single producer of barytes in Britain. The ropeway is depicted on the Ordnance Survey 1-inch Popular Edition map (Sheet 78, 1926) and 1:10,560 (1958). Sponsor: Scottish Coal. Information from Headland Archaeology (1999) MS/899/193.

Given coordinates derived from BGS GeoIndex.

Historically referred to as 'Gasswater A Mine' to differentiate it from the separate 'Gasswater B Mine' [Burnside Mine] further east.