The Cot Burn: Industry, pollution and the environment

Landscape, geology, quarrying & mining:

The characteristic landscape features of the hills and ridges in and around Burntisland, are due to volcanic activity millions of years ago. Their igneous rocks, like basalt and dolerite, are the remnants of molten rock once forced through the older sedimentary bedrocks of sandstone and limestone.

Stone has obviously been used as a construction material from earliest times, but commercial quarrying reached its peak during the Industrial Revolution mid 19^th century.

Local igneous ‘whinstone’ (named for the gorse that grows on these soils) was used for field walls and local buildings, but the main local quarries produced better quality construction stone from the sandstone and limestone. The remains of these old quarries dot the local landscape today e.g. on the golf course, at Kilmundy, Grange, Newbigging and Dalachy. They are now often hidden by woodland and form little wildlife refuges e.g. for roe deer. The old harbours at Starley Burn and the old pier at the foot of Lochies Road at the beach were orginally built to export stone from local quarries. There is still a working quarry at Orrock, on the north side of the Binn, producing aggregates for the construction industry.

Coal is also associated with the sandstones, but unlike other parts of Fife, this is not at commercially viable amounts at Burntisland. However, there are large shale deposits here. Shale is a soft sedimentary rock. When shale is crushed and heated, oil can be extracted.

The Shale Mine and the Shale Oil Works:

The Scottish Shale industry started with the pioneer James ‘Paraffin’ Young in West Lothian in 1850. In Burntisland, shale mining at the east side of the Binn began in 1878, expanding in 1881. Miners excavated in a ‘stoup and room’ system under a wide area of the old Whinnyhall estate. The Burntisland Oil Works was on the B923 Kinghorn Loch Road. What is now a tree covered hillside was once an industrial site processing the shale and refining various oils and waxes. These included: fuel oils, paraffin, lamp oil, lubricating and cleaning oils, and candle wax. The candle works was at Kinghorn Loch by the Loch Burn. Before the shale industry, oils were obtained by the cruel and dangerous whaling industry. Shale oil may have saved the lives of many whales, seals, and whalers. The discovery of liquid oil deposits that could be directly extracted by oil wells, e.g. in the USA, put an end to the local shale industry. The Burntisland Oil Works closed in 1894 after only 16 years of production. Deposits of shale remain under the golf course and Grangehill, Kinghorn.

The Binn Villages: Hundreds of shale miners and shale oil workers and their families were housed around the town. Two new villages were built to house them: High Binn at the Binnend estate and Low Binn beside the oil works at Whinnyhall. The High Binn survived the shale industry as homes and holiday homes until 1954. Half of the ruined village can still be seen from the footpaths at Binnend. The rest has gone, as has the Low Binn village.

Pollution from the shale oil works: As the Cot Burn rises at the east Binn, its water was polluted by the shale oil works. Robert Kirke, who lived at Greenmount beside the Cot Burn, brought a court order against the shale oil company, forcing it to discharge its wastewater into a pipe separate from the burn water. At the time, Kirke’s stand was unpopular!

This wasn’t the end of the pollution problems, however. The spent crushed rock from the works was dumped on the ground to the east of the High Binn village forming a waste heap.

The Aluminium Works:

The British Aluminium Company (BACo) opened their works east of Colinswell House in 1917. Colinswell House became the works social club. Red coloured bauxite ore was imported to Burntisland docks and taken by rail to the works. From the bauxite, alumina powder was manufactured. Alumina had several uses, but the main one was in the production of aluminium metal. The alumina was taken by rail from the Burntisland works to Kinglochleven in Lochaber, making good use of the hydroelectric power available there to power aluminium smelters. The aluminium industry became important during World War II for the manufacture of aircraft.

BACo was taken over by Alcan in 1982. The Burntisland ‘aly-yum-yum’ works closed in 2002 and were demolished. The factory site is now a housing estate, known locally as the ‘Alcan estate’, and Colinswell House is once again a private home.

Red Mud: The waste product of alumina production is known as Red Mud and contains various toxic chemicals. Initially, a breakwater was built across the sea inlet between the works at Colinswell/the Kirkton and the peninsula at the Castle and Ross Point. The Red Mud was dumped behind the breakwater ‘reclaiming’ this area from the sea. This site is still known as the ‘Red Pond’ although it is no longer a pond, but a grass covered amenity area.

Once the Red Pond site was full, the Red Mud was taken from the works by road across town to be dumped east of the old High Binn Village. The roads taken by the trucks often looked orange as some Red Mud spilled out onto the carriageway.

Dumping at Binnend: Firstly, waste from the shale oil works was dumped at Binnend by High Binn village, and later Red Mud from the aluminium works was dumped there too.

Eventually the dump site was flattened and it is now a grassy meadow where horses graze.

Pollution from the aluminium works: The Red Mud dump at the High Binn proved disastrous for the local environment. Toxic chemicals leached out of the site and polluted the local watercourses, including the Cot Burn and Kinghorn Loch. Remediation, including a water treatment works, was required.

Whinnyhall Water Treatment Works:

This works on the B923 Kinghorn Loch Road, on the site of Low Binn just east of the old shale works, is owned and operated by Alcan Aluminium UK Ltd. (a division of Rio Tinto Alcan) and they retain responsibility for it. The treated clean water is piped away and discharged to sea off the west breakwater. The pipes run through the Toll Park under and beside the footpath, and entirely separate from the Cot Burn channel.

SEPA, the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency, monitor the Whinnyhall site and have reassured us that no toxic leachate should now pollute the local burns and the Cot Burn is considered clean. Kinghorn Loch has also recovered from its previous pollution and is now a haven for wildlife and a popular and attractive amenity area.

Please respect the environment:

Please help keep the Toll Park and the Cot Burn clean and litter free.

For further information please see:

Burntisland Oil Shale Works by Ron Edwards and published by Craigencalt Rural Community Trust is a comprehensive booklet available to download from CRCT at:

https://craigencalttrust.org.uk

Some paper copies may also be available from Burntisland Heritage Trust and CRCT.

The CRCT website also gives information on how the polluted Kinghorn Loch was restored to health. CRCT continues work with volunteers and local landowners (including Alcan) to help keep the loch waters clean.

Additional information on the Binn Shale Mine and Burntisland Oil Works and the Binn Villages is available on this website at: https://www.burntisland.net/binnend.htm

The Museum of the Scottish Shale Industry at: http://www.scottishshale.co.uk/index.html has comprehensive information on the industry and includes the works at Burntisland.

Burntisland A Social History by Iain Sommerville and published by Burntisland Heritage Trust has chapters on quarrying and mining and on the aluminium works. It also has memories of local people on ‘the Binn Village’ (mainly High Binn).

Burntisland Voices edited by Iain Sommerville and published by Burntisland Heritage Trust is an oral history record from local people and has a chapter on ‘the Binn Village’.

Geology: a wealth of information is available from the British Geological Survey: https://www.bgs.ac.uk including geological maps of the UK, including Burntisland!

Geology: Scottish Geology has a lot of resources for children and schools: https://www.scottishgeology.com/find-out-more/teachers-page/

The shoreline around Kinghorn, particularly towards Kirkcaldy, is an accessible site of geological interest. It has been used by local schools for outdoor education.