The Frances Colliery, Fife

The Frances Colliery, at Dysart on the Fife Coast, was sunk by the Earl of Rosslyn's Collieries c.1850. It sat on the cliff-top, overlooking the beach, and worked the undersea coals. The Frances was known locally as "The Dubbie" (pond) as it suffered from particularly wet underground conditions. It was taken over by the Fife Coal Company in 1923, then by the National Coal Board on nationalisation of the industry in 1947. It was linked underground to the nearby more modern Seafield Colliery (whose underground workings I was fortunate to visit c.1987).

Underground fires broke out whilst the Frances was closed during the 1984 strike, and production never re-started, and the pit was closed, along with Seafield, in 1988. The surface buildings were later demolished to create an industrial estate, but there remain pumping facilities and giant settling pounds, and the headgear was retained as a memorial to the once great Fife coal industry. If you walk on the beach today, below the headgear, you can see the layers of stratified coal waste that was tipped on the beach.


Nikon D800 + 24-85 zoom + tripod