The Scottish Coal Industry

To complement his existing five volumes on the main Scottish coalfields, mining expert Guthrie Hutton has produced this compact overview of the Scottish coal industry in this old towns and industries format. As he notes, although coal was once king, in the modern world it’s cast as a villain of global warming. But coal made Scotland what it is today and its history cannot be, shouldn’t be, erased. Besides the well-known and remembered Lanarkshire, Fife, Lothian, Central and Ayrshire coalfields, the black stuff was got out the ground at various minor unlikely locations - Brora in Sutherland, Rowanburn in Dumfriesshire, Dalquharran in the Girvan Valley and the Argyll Colliery at the southern end of the Kintyre Peninsula. These sites are featured as are many other better-known ones such as Barony, Killoch, Highhouse, Minnivey, Coalburn, Farme, Bedlay, Banknock, Millhall, Kinneil, Kelty, Glencraig, Bowhill, Rothers and Arniston.