Here’s a great link to the Coal Authority website and in particular their interactive online map. It shows all the immediate mine and colliery entry points, itself fascinating due to the number of them within the immediate Blantyre area.

However, it was the overlay of the “Development High Risk Areas”, i.e areas not to be built upon, that proved very interesting. These are marked on the map by the Coal Authority, shown with black shading. Due to previous mining activity, these are regions that would be much more risky to build on and tend to have have nothing on them. This includes a huge area to the South on the upper slopes of Westcraigs, areas of Calderside and within Calderwood Glen itself. The map is worth a look. As well as the mine shafts denoted by red crosses, the adits (or surface horizontal level mines) are shown.

The map can be found online at http://mapapps2.bgs.ac.uk/coalauthority/home.html