THE ROYAL BURGH OF CULROSS, as well as being one of Scotland’s most beautiful villages, is also the birthplace of coalmining under the sea. In 1590, Sir
George Bruce built a stone tower out in the waters of the Firth of Forth. Down through it a shaft was sunk, 40ft to the seam of coal below, and a corresponding shaft was dug for drainage. It was a
breathtaking feat of 16th-century engineering, and it was said that the workings extended a mile under the sea, and the drainage shaft to a depth of 240ft (73m).
In fact the Moat Pit, as the tower became known, and its drainage shaft were two of more than twenty shafts built at Culross between 1575 and 1676 by this remarkable engineer, his
son and grandsons. Today, the remains of the tower can still be seen at low tide alongside other archaeological remains around the historic village.
In this book, archaeologist and historian Dr Donald Adamson and former mining consultant Robert Yates explain how and why. |
