There’s an isolated section of suburban dual carriageway in eastern Edinburgh that runs through the middle of a 1980s housing estate. This 1983 road has the curious name of The Jewel and the streets off of it have equally odd sounding names; Corbyshot, North Greens, Parrotshot, Vexhim Park, Hosie Rigg… The road is closed at its eastern end by a bus gate, so serves mainly for access to the housing estates clustered around it. This road is the only part of the Eastern Approach Road that was built, which was designed to link the A1 road to new (and never built) roads in Edinburgh at St. Leonards, via Prestonfield and the southern edge of Holyrood Park.
This road takes its name from a long gone village here of the same name. The Jewel Cottages were built in the period of 1880-1900 by the Niddrie and Benhard Coal Company as miners housing for the pits in this area of Edinburgh. They constituted a “company village”, known as the Jewel Village, totalling eventually 168 houses. There were two rows, one on either side of the Niddrie Road, each of two storeys; the ground floor houses being accessed from the front door and the upper flats by external staircases to the rear.
In addition to the pits at Niddrie and Edmonstone, new workings were sunk by the company in the district. Shafts nos. 11 – 13 were added at Niddrie; in 1897 a large new colliery commenced sinking nearby at Newcraighall, often called the Klondyke as it was being sunk during the gold rush of that name between 1896-99; and in 1898 another further south at Woolmet commenced production. The need for workers for these new pits were the reason for the building and expansion of the villages of both Jewel and Newcraighall.
Coal had been mined since antiquity in the Niddrie area, the landowning Wauchope family of Niddrie Marischal being the coalmasters in the 18th and in the earlier part of the 19th century. The Niddrie Coal Company Limited was formed in 1874 to acquire all the mineral rights in this area of Edinburgh, including Niddrie, Woolmet and Edmonstone and all the associated plant, from George Simpson Esq. of Benhar. It was a subsidiary of the Benhar Coal Company Limited; Simpson remained a director, the others being Henry Aitken Esq. of the Benhar Coal Co., Robert Orr a Glasgow coal merchant and Thomas Thornton Esq. a coalmaster from Fauldhouse in West Lothian. The relative importance of the Niddrie pits to this concern saw the company reconstituted in 1882 as the Niddrie and Benhar Coal Company Limited.
The working seams of this endeavour were the Great Seam, the South Parrot, the Stairhead and the North Greens – or Jewel – all of which produced household and cannel coals and the Stairhead also produced ironstone. Cannel coals are those verging on being oil shale, heavy in bituminous oils and hydrogen, meaning it was very useful for producing coal oil. They produced a clean, bright light when burned, hence the name; Cannel being an old word for candle in both Scotland and England. Although they were not particularly effective domestic fuels for heating and cooking, they were prized for this light until domestic gas became widely available. Its geological properties meant it could be carved, turned and polished to produce jewellery and ornaments, hence the local name of Jewel seam. It was this that gave the village (and the 1980s road) their name and I do wonder if the naming committee was having a bit of a private joke amongst itself naming a dual carriageway “jewel”.
At this time, the field was described as presenting “the advantages of superior cannel coals of exceptional thickness… The winning of these minerals in one working greatly diminishes the cost of production, enabling the cannel to be wrought almost as at the cost of common coal“. The pits here had the advantage of the North British Railway running through them and being the closest to the Edinburgh and Leith market. A further 20 seams, extending to 77 feet thickness were known to be workable – take a note of the seam names:
The Jewel, along with the villages of Craigmillar, Niddrie and Newcraighall and the estate of Niddrie Marischal were annexed by Edinburgh in the same 1920 municipal expansion that claimed Leith’s independence, forming the Craigmillar Ward of the city.
The Jewel Miners Welfare Insitute was opened in 1931, replacing a smaller hall that had been provided by the Coal Company in 1903 (although the miners had their wages garnished to the sum of 3d per fortnight to contrbute). The new hall was financed by the Miners’ Welfare Fund, itself funded by a levy of 1d per ton of coal won in British mines. It was estimated at this time that the mines and miners of the Niddrie district had contributed £20,000 to the fund and had received £5,500 for the institute and £1,600 towards a bowling green and pavilion. An additional £8,432 had gone towards the Newcraighall Miners’ Welfare Institute. The fund also contributed to providing conveniences for the miners at collieries; e.g. £12,000 had been spent on pithead baths for Woolmet in 1930.
The institute is a handsome edifice and comprises a commodious hall, billiard room, reading room, games room, a library which will be stocked by Edinburgh Public Library, a cinema and re-winding room and the usual ante-rooms kitchen etc.
Description of the Jewel Miners’ Welfare Institute on its opening in May 1931
The Niddrie collieries were closed before nationalisation in 1947. Newcraighall Colliery closed in 1967, earlier than anticipated after work to modernise the production underground had failed. Woolmet had predeceased it in 1966, although it was retained as a training centre for a number of years. The workforce of both pits transferred to the new “Super Pit” at Monktonhall. Although there was still mining work in the area, the village fell into decline and by 1972 was largely abandoned and derelict. It was demolished, along with the original Newcraighall village and both would be replaced by modern housing schemes. At the Jewel, only the bowling club and the Miner’s Welfare Club survived the wrecker’s ball.
Coming to the names of the modern streets, and reflecting back on the table of coal seams further up, those odd street names now begin to make a bit more sense;
| Street | Named for |
|---|---|
| The Jewel | The Jewel coal seam, another name for the North Greens seam |
| Corbyshot | Corbie Craig and Real Corbie coal seams (Corbie is Scots for a crow) |
| Parrotshot | South Parrot coal seam, parrot coal was another name for cannel coal |
| North Greens | North Greens coal seam, another name for The Jewel seam |
| Vexhim Park | Lower Vexhim limestone seam |
| Hosie Rigg | Top Hosie limestone seam |
I think the names are nice touches, recalling a long mining history in the area which is no longer readily apparent, but the whole place is a bit of a case study in bad 1980s urban planning ideas, with a motorway through the middle and disconnected residential areas.
If you have found this useful, informative or amusing and would like to help contribute towards the running costs of this site (including keeping it ad-free) or to the book-buying budget, why not consider supporting me on ko-fi.
These threads © 2017-2023, Andy Arthur
Threadinburgh 