The Mary Colliery

Around 1900, the Fife Coal Company acquired the Lochore Estate and resolved to sink a new pit - The Mary - to reach the desirable Navigation Coal Seams. At a depth of some 1,800 feet, this was one of the deepest shafts of its time in Scotland, and sinking commenced in 1902. In 1923, a second shaft was sunk, and it is on this second shaft that the reinforced concrete winding tower in this photograph was erected, the first of its type in Scotland (steel being the customary material). This shaft was fitted with an electric winding engine, also innovative for its time as an alternative to steam.

The Mary Colliery was both productive and long-lived, surviving until the National Coal Board (which had taken over the industry on Nationalisation in 1947) closed it in 1966. The Mary employed an average of 614 workers, above and below ground.

The concrete headgear, visible in Lochore Meadows Country Park from the M90, stands today as a fine symbol of the coal industry that was once the mainstay of Fife's, indeed Scotland's economy. The Thatcher Government put a final end to that, but there are many families in this part of Fife that still have coaldust in their veins, and are rightly proud of it too.


Nikon D40X with tripod