Monktonhall was one of the Scottish super pits sunk in the 1950's intended to supply the new generation of Power stations. They were the most modern and well equipped mines in the country.They were sunk to deeper levels and mostly had to deal with challenging mining conditions at deeper levels than the previous generation of mines. Monktonhall was sunk to a depth of 930 meters making it one of the deepest mines. Throughout its life it suffered from water ingress. It was scheduled for closure along with the rest of the deep mines in Scotland following Thatcher's miners strike and subsequent privatisations. Monktonhall was purchased by a cooperative of miners however this independence was short lived as they just did not have sufficient capital to deal with non productive work caused by faults in the coal seam and the colliery closed finally in 1997 and the majority of surface buildings were demolished in 1998. For some years the colliery was still pumped and water treated through sedimentation tanks and extensive reed beds.
The shafts are not fully capped however the site is now under development for housing. I wouldn't want to buy the one built over the 930M water filled shaft!
The sedimentation ponds are dry as are the reed beds behind. The high iron content of the water left this beautiful rust coloured Martian landscape
Across the ponds was a derelict building that looked interesting, the ponds and this building are visible at the top right of the site photograph above.
Once inside it was a bit disappointing. All that 's left is the remains of a dosing system
Used to mix lime into the outfall
And this big tank that looks like it has been on fire
At least there were some nice rusty details
The colliery was built adjacent to Millerhill railway marshalling yard again state of the art with a fully remotely controlled hump shunting system to assemble trains. More than half of the yard was abandoned and tracks lifted around 25 years ago. It has been totally reclaimed by nature and is a forest of self seeded birch. The evidence of its former existence remains in miles of concrete cable duct used to power the points and signals.
and the occasional bit of track left behind
Work is starting at the South of this yard for the new borders railway from Edinburgh to Galashiels that originally ran through this site. What with that and the development on the colliery site this will probably all be gone soon.
Not the greatest explore probably a bit more sub-urbex than urb-ex but an interesting way to spend a sunny morning.
Caber
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