I am trying to establish the name of this so it can be correctly added to the database. Not Auldton (heights) nor Auchmeddan No 1, which are both correctly located. The nearest property is Annfield, but Google does not know of any mine by that name, so I am guessing it may have been Auldton Number X or something like that.

This one is at NS 834373. Every time I pass on the M74 (not for a while, but hopefully soon) it puzzles me. I should take a minor detour via the old A74 and have a look next time.

http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3304552 

Last time I passed, there were two buildings, one long and one short, the long one having a tower, possibly a headframe at one end. On NLS Maps the small building aligns well with one on the 1941 1:25000 map, but the long one does not. It is not on any older maps, so possibly a wartime thing to keep the Bevan Boys busy.

I don't think it produced a huge amount of coal, as there is no evidence on the ground or maps that it was ever connected to the railway at Auldtonheights Junction nearby.

The Coal Authority site knows of the shaft but no record of it being filled. No name of course, and no indication of shallow mining, so it must have been reasonably deep.

I hope it has not gone, and I can get some good pictures, without falling down the shaft.

Pretty sure that is the remains of Auldton Colliery No.3 (or C) which was a new mine added to the existing Audlton Colliery on the west side of the B7078. It operated between 1951 and October 1963.

I may have more information at home.

I expect that it was a relatively shallow drift mine, as it lays within an area of shallow coal deposits. British Coal have carried extensive prospecting over the area on both sides of the B7078 for a proposed opencast site to be called Auldton Heights. Scottish Coal had began developing a revised version of the scheme to excavate 420,000 tonnes of coal on the west side of the road but dropped the scheme in 2011, not long before their spectacular fall from grace!

I lived in Lanarkshire between 1970 and 1977 and visited this site. In those days there were remains of an inclined drift but the entrance had been blocked or had run in. Rails came out of the drift and up a ramp over a low building to the south of the existing buildings. This has disappeared. The mine is shown on the 1955 OS 1:25000 map on the NLS website. but not on the earlier 6" maps.

Auldton No. 3 most likely as Grumpytramp says.

Originally opened by Boyd Bros. in 1942 (No. 1), Nos. 2 and 3 developed 1951-4. Three surface mines (drifts), no shafts. Produced steam coal, peak workforce 96 in 1960. Closed 1963. [Scottish Collieries, M K Oglethorpe, 2006]

The Guide to the Coalfields 1950 - Doesn't have a Auldton Colliery but does have two collieries - Auchlochan Nos. 2, 9 and 10 and Auchlochan Nos. 6 and 7. Both have the same telephone No, Lesmahagow 3 and the same Agent - J.C. Parker but different managers - J.W. Meek and J. Wilson. 2, 9 and 10 had 290 underground and 120 on surface whilst 6 and 7 had 70 underground and 40 on the surface. They both have addresses as Coalburn, Lanarkshire.

Thanks everyone, that has been most useful. I see how that information all fits together, with the maps and CA database, sort of. The CA site has adits at 283412,637347 and 283439,637374, the latter thought to be backfilled, and a shaft at 283399,637063 which almost certainly has nothing to do with this as it does not show on any of the maps and may be very old. The adits have bearings of 119 and 123 degrees, and so will pass under the M74, maybe even into what was recently the Broken Cross opencast. They also explain the long structure parallel to and south of the main building, now disappeared, which would be as larker has described.

Curiously the existing long building is not on the 1955 (surveyed 1941) map. I think the surveyors caught the mine as it was being built, without all its facilities.

On Google Earth there is nothing where the shaft ought to be, near the electricity pylon. I suspect the CA have plotted the position incorrectly. Looking at all available satellite imaging I think it was actually at or close to 283404,637017, but the 6 inch 1864 map has two suspicious rectangles at 283425,637030 and 283426,637053.

There are a number of these long, narrow buildings with tower at one end in central Scotland. I will try to spot more of them next time I get a chance, and see if they relate to anything that the CA know about. I recall seeing one further south, beside the M74, where there should be no coal. I will get its position next time I pass.

I will try to get up there and take some pictures in the next few months, maybe once the worst of the winter is over, then see if it needs an entry of its own, or should just be added to the Auldton entry.