Clay shale land drains, Red Burn, East Lothian
Article by Ian Suddaby.
The Red Burn in East Lothian is barely moving just now (22/04/2020) but it’s been tearing chunks out of the adjacent field in the past. Field drain pipes are being washed out and lie scattered in the bed.
These are interesting as they seem to be made from grey mined clay-shale, basically brick mixture. This is very rare in field drains, which are normally made from the subsurface drift deposits of clay and are orange once fired. I have seen this before, in the Fife coalfields many years ago.
In other ways, they’re just like ordinary drains, extruded, oval profile with flat bases, 15″ long. Two sizes were seen, a large one 4¾” x 3¾” internal diameter and a smaller one 3¼” x 2¾” internal diameter. I thought the smaller ones might fit inside the larger but they don’t, kiln space wasn’t an issue clearly.
I wonder if an unknown local tileworks bought or was given clay-shale from one of the many nearby collieries? If so, it’s a wonder these aren’t seen more often.
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Below – A drain and collars of a similar composition to the one above. Found by Ian Suddaby in the Crossgates, Fife area.
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