Loganlea Colliery Baths

Pithead baths were installed at Loganlea in 1929

In 1929, the Miners' Welfare Fund Committee paid for pithead baths to be installed at Loganlea Colliery.

An article about the baths was printed in the West Lothian Courier in July that year, and gives an idea of how important they were to a mining community. You can read the full article by opening the PDF at the foot of this page.

'pit clothes hanging before a kitchen fire, with the bairns kept back from the warmth'

In 1929, between 500 and 600 men were employed at Loganlea.  The baths were their choice - preferred over halls, institutes or recreation grounds. 
For the miners, the baths meant:

• they could get a hot bath or shower at the pit 
• they no longer had to travel home in wet and filthy clothes
• they were no longer shunned on buses by other passengers

For the miners' wives, it was an end to the drudgery of:

'Pithead baths will raise the social status of the miners'

• trying to get their men's clothes dry every night
• boiling water and filling an old zinc bath every night for their man to have a bath

For the miners' family, it meant:

• they no longer had to share their living room with wet washing
• they no longer had to shiver while the wet clothes kept the heat of the fire away from them.

Pithead baths changed lives!  Read all about it below.

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Loganlea Pithead Baths (112k)
How the baths would benefit the lives not just of miners, but also of their wives and families.