Digital prints on inkjet paper, 2008
Survey by RCAHMS
Lady Victoria Colliery produced coal from 1895 and to 1981. Prior to Nationalisation, it was showpiece pit of the Lothian Coal Company. The mine’s single shaft was 530m in depth, one of the deepest and widest in Scotland at the time. A bad fire in the winding engine house led to refurbishment in 1903.
Prior to the mechanisation of underground haulage, 120 ponies were employed at ‘The Lady’. In the National Coal Board (NCB) post-1946 era, the colliery also became a major engineering workshop centre for the Lothians area. Baths for the miners were opened in 1954. A reinforced concrete heated walkway over the A7 trunk road connected these to the pithead.
Following closure in 1981, much of the surface arrangement was rescued from demolition, to be transformed into the Scottish Mining Museum. It is a fine example of a Victorian model colliery, dating from a period when the scale of mining increased as deeper shafts were sunk to reach the coal.
As one of the few remaining examples surviving of Scotland’s mining heritage, RCAHMS surveyed the colliery buildings and complex to create a full photographic and drawn record.
These three drawings show different aspects of the colliery:
The north elevation shows the side of the Winding Engine House and the railway lines and is rarely seen by visitors. Coal was brought up the shaft by a huge steam-powered winding engine, and then inspected and sorted on coal 'picking tables', before being emptied into railway wagons below. The extensive railway sidings linked the colliery to its main markets in Edinburgh, and to the tweed mills to the south in the Scottish Border towns such as Hawick, Selkirk and Galashiels.
The east elevation is possibly best know to visitors as this can be seen from the A7 and the Museum car park. It shows the 'Old Washer' believed to be the only surviving example of this type of coal washing plant in Europe. It also shows the Winding Engine House, and the new Power House, which generated the power for the pit until this was supplied by the National Grid.
A glimpse of the south elevation can be caught when driving towards Edinburgh on the A7. It shows the picking tables and railway lines as well as coal preparation including the ‘Old Washer’ and the chimney in the background.