by jock78 » Tue Nov 04, 2014 3:17 pm
when I was a wee lad in Robroyston I remember that there was two old open mineshafts which were simply cordoned-off by six feet high walls. We often threw bricks down them, counting to about 20 before we heard the crash as they hit the bottom! I trust they have long ago been properly filled and sealed. In the past, this was not always the case,as it was much simpler and cheaper to cover them over at the rockhead with timber and backfill to the surface.
The problem with this is that in the event of a collapse, a draw-down of the surface could occur filling both the shaft, and the stoop and room areas near this. I should point out that I do not know of any such event which has happened in the Glasgow area but know this has happened elsewhere in the past.
I had occasion to survey a site for a new comprehensive school in Airdrie in the 70s. It was known there were old shafts on the site but the method of locating them at that time was by extensive boreholes at close intervals- two were located and filled but a potential third one was not, so the solution was to spread a reinforced net over the likely area at one metre below the surface.
Later living in Chryston,which had previously been subject to a mining disaster in a local pit, I returned home to find that the road outside my house had blown-up wrecking, in turn, my colleague's car. The reason for this was that methane in the large diameter sewer there had exploded this gas, arguable, was from the old mine.
Living in a town which has been subject to heavy industry and chemical works in the past, together with mining, we need to be aware of the previous use of our local area.