Blairhall pit stop Traditional Cache
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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Cache is a small lock and lock container located just off the main path. Be careful as it can be a bit wet under foot around GZ.
When you visit this Cache site please take just a few minutes to look around you, it is hard to believe that in quite a short period of time there is very little trace of a very busy Colliery.
Blairhall Colliery was developed in the 1870s By the Carron Iron Company to win blackband ironstone. Originally with two shafts it was worked for about eight years before being sold to the Lochgelly Iron company who then sold on to the Coltness Iron Company, one of Scotland’s main iron and coal concerns. As well as ironstone the pit worked Parrot coal (so called because of the chattering noise it made when burning) but by the 1890s both were nearing exhaustion.
It was decided to sink two new shafts in 1906 and they were named after Lord Elgin’s son and daughter, Lord Bruce and Lady Veronica. These continued to produce up to 1500 tons of coal a day until the pit closure in 1969.
Parking for the cache is at N 56 04.656 W 003 36.409. Please do not block any entrance to the fields. Follow the tarmac road North East that was once the entrance to the Pit.
If you fancy a longer walk then carry on past the cache and bear left and down to the cycle way that was once the main Dunfermline to Stirling railway line, now very popular with walkers and cyclists.
As you return to the parking area you may, on a clear day, notice on the horizon the top of the 183 m (600 feet) high chimney stack at Longannet power station which now runs on imported coal.
Contents of cache on placing:-
1 First to find certificate
1 Piece of coal (please leave with cache)
1 piece of fool’s gold
1 Scotland key ring
1 Scotland ribbon
1 Dynamic Earth pen
1 large red comic relief ear
1 box of jumping beans
1 carrier bag grip
Well done to Gavin4077 for being FTF!
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Ng onfr bs prager gerr.