16 C O N T E X T 1 0 9 : M A Y 2 0 0 9 petroleum also began to impact on demand for coal. The 1960s heralded the introduction of nuclear power which was ultimately to attract government subsidy away from the coal industry. A further setback took the form of the arrival of natural gas, first from the southern North Sea, and in 1977 from the massive Frigg field via St Fergus in Scotland. Soon all the UK’s town gas works were closed. The parallel demise of much of the country’s energy-hungry heavy industries such as iron and steel further diminished the demand for coal. The physical disappearance of the industry that ensued is well illustrated by events in Scotland. Having started out with over 200 nationalised collieries in 1947, these were reduced to 65 by 1967, 11 by 1987, and none by 2002 when the last mine, at Longannet in Fife, was accidentally flooded. The final years of the industry coincided with privatisation, which accelerated the process of demolition and clearance of mining remains. Today there is little recognisable evidence of mining in large parts of the Scottish coalfields, although open-cast mining continues apace, with half the UK’s production of coal now coming from Scotland. At the same time, most gasworks buildings were demolished. The extent of the disappearance is extraordinary, given the omnipresent nature of the industry. Even spoil heaps have vanished in reclamation programmes driven in particular by the awful consequences of the Aberfan disaster in 1966. Today in Scotland only a handful of pit headgear survive as monuments and the only coherent surviving colliery complex is Lady Victoria Colliery at Newtongrange in Midlothian, now the site of the Scottish Mining Museum. The picture is not quite as stark as it might seem. As the inventory of assets taken over by the NCB in 1947 indicates, the coal industry included a lot more than the mines themselves. Coal’s associated heavy ceramics industries produced huge quantities of bricks and specialist architectural materials such as special shapes, copes, paviors, roof and ridge tiles, and chimney cans that continue to comprise important elements within the fabric of our streets and buildings. Equally, the housing associated with some of the colliery companies was often of high standard, and in some cases has survived relatively intact. In the case of Newtongrange, for example, the imposition of a conservation area by Midlothian Council helped to ensure the survival of an outstanding pit village. As for the collieries themselves, even those buildings and structures that have survived continue to pose formidable maintenance problems. None were built with anything other than function and profit in mind, and their long-term survival requires significant resources. Attempts were made to protect a selection of the best colliery buildings, such as the older engine houses at Barony Colliery in Ayrshire, but despite listed-building status, it proved impossible to save them. The maintenance issues arising from combinations of mild-steel frames and common brick is nowhere better demonstrated than at Lady Victoria Colliery, where large parts of the surface arrangement have had to be closed to the public because weathering and corrosion have rendered them dangerous.There remain questions as to the extent to which these buildings can be saved in the long term, but the situation has been greatly assisted by the award in March 2009 of a £1.3 million capital grant by Scottish ministers. Together with the adjacent village of Newtongrange, the colliery comprises one of the most important surviving monuments to the coal industry in Europe. Less visible, but perhaps equally important, is the legacy left by the Miners Welfare Fund (MWF). Following its establishment in 1920, the MWF built facilities for miners and their communities using funds levied from the coal companies. The work of MWF is most commonly associated with the fine artdeco architecture of the pithead baths that it funded, but it also supported the creation of a wide range of educational, cultural and sporting facilities across the coalfields. In Scotland, the bulk of the MWF pithead baths were the work of architect JA Dempster. Although most disappeared in the carnage of the 1970s and 1980s, there are a few survivors, such as at the former Ramsay Colliery in Loanhead, Midlothian. Today the work of the MWF is continuing through the activities of the Coal Industry Social and Welfare Organisation, which also maintains networks of clubs and supports the former coal communities through education, social work and health programmes. Deep coal mining may be a tiny fraction of what it was half a century ago, and most of the mines themselves have long since disappeared, but the legacy of the industry lives on, deeply embedded not only in the mining communities, but also in the fabric of villages, towns and cities across the UK. Miles Oglethorpe is head of policy liaison and modernisation in the chief inspector’s office at Historic Scotland. Ramsay Colliery pithead baths at Loanhead, Midlothian, are now part of a scrapyard (Historic Scotland, 2007). Manor Powis Colliery pithead baths near Stirling were designed by JA Dempster in 1933 (RCAHMS).
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