On Wednesday 16th November 1904, Sanitary Inspector James Dobson brought a complaint against Colliery owners Merry and Cunningham, about the dangerous bing which was rising up adjacent to Auchinraith Road.
The complaint was in relation to Auchinraith Colliery Bing, but not about its height. This as about it being unsafe, with high quantities of coal and slag amongst the waste. This smouldering mess was dangerous occurrence under the Public Health Act.
The minerals had accumulated making the refuse igneous, a towering powder keg which the inspector said should be made safe at once. Merry and Cunningham explained that it was only a “small part” of the bing, which had accumulated in size over many years to a million tonnes. The part in question it was heard had been on fire for 10 years forcing the colliery from time to time to make attempts at putting it out. The colliery owners denied it was a nuisance, being remote from homes and other buildings.
Ultimately though, it was for the Colliery to extinguish and make safe. Auchinraith Colliery was worked in until it closed in 1931.
To give an idea of size, this photo shared by Anthony Smith was taken from Auchinraith Colliery Bing in the 1950s, although by then there were many homes around it and much higher than it was in 1904.
Thanks – my poem about the bing at Cardowan was published today.
Concerning the bing and some truths around it
Here skies glow angry with flare-ups,
children are warned away from the bing
that smoulders like a spurned lover.
Forests compressed by time, spring-green
trees become fossil fuel. Heaped overground,
the detritus shadows homes, souls, lungs.
Some murmur geology, talk of jack-in-
the-box continents shifting, of upheaval,
of underground seams rich with black gold.
Others murmer the hill is the rounded haunch
of a fire beast that dreams and spits terror.
The locals know the bings, know the truth.
They paid for this heap with their breath.
Orange flickers self-sparking night and
day, health risked to scavenge for dross.
The mound is man made, a casual cast-off.
All the profits and miners are long gone,
though the spoils and spite of greed still flame.