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Re: Danger from old mines and mineshafts

PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2014 2:23 am
by Vinny the Mackem
Grahame wrote:Back in the 80s, when we were looking for a flat to buy in the West End, we had 3 or 4 mortgages refused in the Hillhead area because of the risk of subsidence from mining. However subsequently those flats have been sold - whether some work has been done to stabilise them or whether mortgage lenders just got less discriminating I don't know.

Dexter St. Clair wrote:If one could find the maps used by banks in the sixties to red line areas that mortgages were not to be made available to home buyers I think they would match former mining works.

There is the wonderful Coal Authority interactive map viewer available now if you need to check someplace. There goes your morning, Dex. :D

Many years ago, I worked with a solicitors firm who did conveyancing. They were asked to purchase a first floor flat in Hyndland. Part of the duties of the solicitor is also to act for the lender. On checking the title, it became clear that the first floor flat had no legal right to the land upon which the property was built. The effect is that in the event of catastrophic collapse, or required demolition and rebuild, the upper floors had no right to reinstatement. The sellers were asked to carry out corrective conveyancing, as the bank would not lend as the title currently stood, but they refused. Their argument was that this had clearly never been a problem for the past 100+ years that the property had been bought and sold over the years. Perhaps, but it still didn't make it right.

Presumably, they sellers managed to sell, either by them carrying out the corrective conveyancing, or by the next purchasers solicitors failing to spot the problem, or conveniently ignoring it.

I understand from a conveyancing pal of mine that the Scottish Parliament has now legislated to correct this problem (which was surprisingly common) throughout Scotland, so this won't manifest itself as a problem in the future, no matter what the title actually states.

Re: Danger from old mines and mineshafts

PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2014 8:28 am
by RapidAssistant
It is crazy how you can get stung over something that happened before you were born......I fell into the same trap selling my house, not as dangerous as subsidence over mineshafts (although said house WAS in "mineshaft city" - i.e. Coatbridge), but someone did a bathroom conversion 30 years earlier (I was a twinkle in my dad's eye at the time) without a building warrant...just at the same time as lenders got picky about the slightest anomaly about a properties' history.....so I had to pay hundreds to the robbing council for a letter of comfort to get the conveyancing process moving again.. B**tards!!!! :evil: :evil:

Re: Danger from old mines and mineshafts

PostPosted: Sun Nov 16, 2014 2:38 pm
by gap74
The southern side of the bus terminus at Cambuslang (curiously named as buses haven't actually terminated there for years!), had subsidence issues until it was capped about 20 years ago. A little marker was placed to mark the completion of the work, not sure if it's still there - the site now, perhaps fittingly, houses the Mick McGahey mining memorial.

Found this on The Glasgow Story website:

http://www.theglasgowstory.com/image.php?inum=TGSA00953

And this just Googling:

http://www.soil-engineering.co.uk/case- ... stigation/

Re: Danger from old mines and mineshafts

PostPosted: Sun Nov 16, 2014 4:03 pm
by jock78
When I started this thread, I said that i could not recall any such event in Glasgow, but have been away since about 1980.
i note that the incidents which have been referred to, are all relatively recent.
This leads me to the suggestion that such potential collapses are now becoming more regular, as time is catching up with dubious shaft blocking? I
t would be interesting to see the incidents listed through time.

I mentioned also that I had had a problem with methane exploding in a large diameter sewer in the Muirhead area. It was never settled as to whether this was from the local abandoned mine ( Auchingeoch) which had been a disaster pit or simply from the marsh area or even fermenting sewerage.
The problem there was in placing responsibility -as LCC pointed out that their sewers were not designed to keep out gas! Their solution was to seal the manhole covers and ventilate the sewer via dummy lamp posts which did appear to work.
In testing for methane, I used plastic bottles filled with water and connected to a 1m tube- allowing the water to escape down the manhole filled to bottle with the gas, which could then be ignited at a safe distance.

Hope no one has to resort to this.

John

Re: Danger from old mines and mineshafts

PostPosted: Sun Nov 16, 2014 4:25 pm
by mercury
My brother stays in Chryston. Several years ago following an explosion, Auchingeoch?, they put posts, like lamposts without lights, to vent underground gasses into the atmosphere.

Re: Danger from old mines and mineshafts

PostPosted: Mon Nov 17, 2014 12:37 am
by gap74
There's also the ever-recurring dip in the southbound lane of the M74, just outside Polamadie train depot - been dug up and repaired numerous times but the mineshaft underneath just keeps sinking...

Re: Danger from old mines and mineshafts

PostPosted: Mon Nov 17, 2014 1:52 am
by octavia
yip, this dip in the new bit of the m74 just seems to get deeper ,even after getting fixed?

Re: Danger from old mines and mineshafts

PostPosted: Mon Nov 17, 2014 2:16 am
by Reverend Scapegoat
( Yeah, it's been a while, I totally forgot about these forums!! :p )

I was at Huntly Park in Giffnock a few months ago, and the bit behind the football pitches that was always fenced in by a 4' wooden fence and some "Danger! Subsidence!" signs that we all ignored as kids... Is now surrounded by an 8 foot metal jaggy bugger of a fence!
And that's a pretty large area! Anyone know exactly what was under there?
And where the entrance would have been, if it was mineshafts? I always wondered, when I was wee!

Re: Danger from old mines and mineshafts

PostPosted: Mon Nov 17, 2014 5:00 pm
by peasy23
gap74 wrote:There's also the ever-recurring dip in the southbound lane of the M74, just outside Polamadie train depot - been dug up and repaired numerous times but the mineshaft underneath just keeps sinking...


I work in Polmadie and you can put your house on the southbound being closed at night every second or third week for repairs to be carried out.

Re: Danger from old mines and mineshafts

PostPosted: Mon Dec 08, 2014 9:19 pm
by Celyn
RapidAssistant wrote:The East End is notorious for it - a lot of the tenements on Alexandra Parade are pinned because of subsidence issues, and I remember there was a tenement collapse on Shettleston Road in 1980/81 - something like that - I have vague memories of it as I was only 4 years old at the time, but I think there were fatalities, and they had to knock down a whole line of tenements because they were unstable, and the row between Chester St and Ardholm St were dismantled, with only the shops left standing.
...


Very late reply here. :) I just read this and it sounded familiar. I wasn't in Glasgow at the time, but probably heard about it from my parents or read in newspapers, and I seemed to remember it being a barber or hairdresser shop. And it was.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2507&dat=19810618&id=8rVAAAAAIBAJ&sjid=yKUMAAAAIBAJ&pg=3515,3508459

Two fatalities, plus some trapped in rubble and injured It seems that the building above the chop was being demolished, then it all went wrong, so it might not be connected to mines, although the area is riddled with old mine tunnels or whatever. The council had already served a dangerous building notice, and Mr. Eusebi the barber preferred to have the upper storeys taken down and to keep his ground-floor barber shop going. The late Mr. Eusebi, that would be.

I couldn't help laughing at one line in the linked "Herald" article, saying that "the police were here in five minutes". Well, shit, they'd have no excuse not to be there in five minutes, would they? A wee casual stroll along from Chester Street would do it. :D

Edited to add: Date was 17th June, 1981.

Re: Danger from old mines and mineshafts

PostPosted: Wed Dec 10, 2014 9:01 pm
by stinkpad
Reverend Scapegoat wrote:( Yeah, it's been a while, I totally forgot about these forums!! :p )

I was at Huntly Park in Giffnock a few months ago, and the bit behind the football pitches that was always fenced in by a 4' wooden fence and some "Danger! Subsidence!" signs that we all ignored as kids... Is now surrounded by an 8 foot metal jaggy bugger of a fence!
And that's a pretty large area! Anyone know exactly what was under there?
And where the entrance would have been, if it was mineshafts? I always wondered, when I was wee!



That's Braidbar Quarry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giffnock#Industry

Re: Danger from old mines and mineshafts

PostPosted: Thu Dec 11, 2014 12:29 am
by octavia
old landfill,still creating methane.Growing up in EK st leonards,early 70s there was an area known as ,the dump,just off Morrishall rd. played on it as a boy .often had breathing issues after,cough etc .late 80s council put rotating vent shafts in the whole area,kept it very low key.these vents are still to this day operating taking methane out of this site. dont think new housing will ever be built here,massive bit of land next to existing housing infrastrucure etc.

Re: Danger from old mines and mineshafts

PostPosted: Thu Dec 11, 2014 3:38 pm
by old jock
Got a vague recollection as boy a looooong time ago, my father who was a policeman in the Maryhill area talking about somewhere there as having an underground fire, probably old mine workings and they couldn't put it out so just let it burn underground.

As I recall it went on for years this would be mid late 60s early 70s.

Re: Danger from old mines and mineshafts

PostPosted: Thu Dec 11, 2014 11:34 pm
by moonbeam
Where the ASDA in Summerston is now. About their was the location of the Garscube Colliery. The last working colliery in north Glasgow within the city limits. It closed in 1966. Cardowan I consider as east Glasgow. Garscube Colliery waste bing burnt for years. I recall it burning even when the coal mine was in production. It was never a particularly big pit and I think it employed around 100 miners when it closed. But the burning bing gave off this sulphurous type of smoke. Burning pit bings were not uncommon I recall one through Armadale way.

Re: Danger from old mines and mineshafts

PostPosted: Sat Dec 13, 2014 12:47 pm
by RDR
moonbeam wrote:Where the ASDA in Summerston is now. About their was the location of the Garscube Colliery. The last working colliery in north Glasgow within the city limits. It closed in 1966. Cardowan I consider as east Glasgow. Garscube Colliery waste bing burnt for years. I recall it burning even when the coal mine was in production. It was never a particularly big pit and I think it employed around 100 miners when it closed. But the burning bing gave off this sulphurous type of smoke. Burning pit bings were not uncommon I recall one through Armadale way.


I wasn't long in the NHS when there was some sort of disaster at Cardowan, an explosion I think.
I remember a major incident being declared and injured miners being brought to GRI.