Coal Mines in the Sea

In 1590, Sir George Bruce built a stone tower out in the waters of the Firth of Forth. Down through it a shaft was sunk, 40ft to the seam of coal below, and a corresponding shaft was dug for drainage. It was a breathtaking feat of 16th-century engineering, and it was said that the workings extended a mile under the sea, and the drainage shaft to a depth of 240ft (73m). In fact the Moat Pit, as the tower became known, and its drainage shaft were two of more than twenty shafts built at Culross bet