Prestongrange Colliery
| Prestongrange Colliery | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| General information about the mine | |||
 |
|||
| Mining technology | Civil engineering | ||
| Funding / year | 167,000 t | ||
| Information about the mining company | |||
| Operating company | Summerlee Iron Company | ||
| Employees | 670 | ||
| Start of operation | 1820 | ||
| End of operation | 1962 | ||
| Successor use | Brickworks; Industrial museum | ||
| Funded raw materials | |||
| Degradation of | Hard coal / hard coal | ||
| Hard coal | |||
| Great Seam | |||
| Greatest depth | 128 m | ||
| Hard coal | |||
| Degradation of | Hard coal | ||
| Beggar Seam | |||
| Greatest depth | 238 m | ||
| Geographical location | |||
| Coordinates | 55 ° 57 '7.2 " N , 3 ° 0' 16.8" W | ||
|
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| Location | Prestonpans | ||
| local community | Prestonpans | ||
| Unitary Authority | East Lothian | ||
| Country | United Kingdom | ||
Prestongrange Colliery is a former coal mine in Scotland Prestonpans in the Council Area East Lothian . Today the facility is open to visitors as part of the Prestongrange Industrial Heritage Museum .
geography
Prestongrange Colliery is west of Prestonpans on the south bank of the Firth of Forth . Much of the stock has been mined under the sea.
history
Hard coal was mined in the vicinity of the mine as early as the 12th century . 1741 horse pegs were used in Prestongrange . In 1746 operations had to be stopped because the dewatering was insufficient and the mine drowned . At the beginning of the 19th century, Prestongrange was owned by the Grant-Suttie family . Only the invention and improvement of the steam engine and its use for dewatering in mines made it possible to resume operations on Prestongrange. In 1830 George Grant-Suttie leased the land around Prestongrange to Matthias Dunn, in the same year shaft 1 ( Great seam pit ) was sunk . In 1838 Dunn gave up and in 1840 the shaft was drowned again. In 1850 the Prestongrange Coal and Iron Company leased the mine. In the same year it received a siding to the East Coast line . In 1874, the Cornwall machine from a lead mine in Devon , England, was installed in the so-called pump house next to shaft 1. This succeeded in solving the pit's water problems for the following decades. In 1893 the Prestongrange Coal and Iron Company went bankrupt and the mine was taken over by the Summerlee Iron Company . In 1895, the first mechanical coal washing plant in Scotland was built on Prestongrange . In that decade, a brick factory was built on the site . In 1900, Prestongrange employed 439 workers, 61 of them for days . The daily output was 1000 t. In 1905 the capacity of the dewatering machine was increased. To do this, the balancer had to be reinforced in order to withstand the higher stress; the wooden sucker rods were also renewed. In 1910 the workforce was 873 people, 153 of them above ground and 720 underground. In 1910 an electric centrifugal pump was also installed. In 1947 the company was nationalized. Around 1950 700 miners were employed, who achieved a daily output of 670 tons. By the 1950s the dewatering machine had reached the end of its life. In 1952 a pump broke, in 1953 an exhaust valve. When the cast-iron pressure pipelines also began to crack in 1954, this steam engine was shut down and replaced by electric centrifugal pumps. Coal production was discontinued in 1962 and external operations continued into the 1970s. In the 1990s, parts of the mine were opened together with surrounding businesses as an industrial museum.
description
The mine had three shafts with a depth of 115, 166 and 225 m .
Dewatering machine
Location: 55 ° 57 ′ 6.3 ″ N , 3 ° 0 ′ 20.2 ″ W , The three-story pump house houses a Cornwall machine , which is unique in this southern English design in Scotland. The steam engine acted directly on the sucker rods , which went up and down in shaft 1, via a balancer . It powered three double-acting piston pump sets. The standing cylinder of the steam engine lifts the articulated rods, which weigh around 100 tons, during its downward movement. The piston pumps suck in water. The artificial rods then sink under their own weight, while the piston pumps push the water up into the risers. The machine made two strokes per minute and performed 4.1 m³ per hour. The 70 inch cylinder stroke was 12 feet and the pumps were 10 feet. The reduction was achieved by the asymmetrical balance.
monument
In 1971 the pump house was included in the Scottish monument lists in the highest category A. The pump house, together with other buildings of the daytime facilities, forms a category A monument ensemble. Finally, the former mine is classified as a scheduled monument .
Web links
- Entry on Prestongrange Colliery in Canmore, Historic Environment Scotland database
- Prestongrange Museum. In: Undiscovered Scotland: The Ultimate Online Guide. Retrieved November 11, 2014 .
- Helen Robinson: Water at Prestongrange and pumping it out. (PDf, 976 kB) A resource pack for teachers and students. Retrieved November 11, 2014 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Listed Building - Entry . In: Historic Scotland .
- ↑ a b Information in the Gazetteer for Scotland
- ↑ a b Entry on Prestongrange Colliery in Canmore, the database of Historic Environment Scotland (English)
- ^ Prestongrange Cornish Beam Engine. (No longer available online.) Coast-alive.eu, archived from the original on November 11, 2014 ; accessed on November 11, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Prestongrange Industrial Heritage Museum, Prestonpans, East Lothian. In: Beam Engines in the UK. geograph.org.uk, accessed on November 11, 2014 .
- ↑ Scheduled Monument - Entry . In: Historic Scotland .
