Gorebridge History

The construction of the village of Gorebridge began in 1799 when the landowner, Mr Dewar of Vogrie, leased land for building. The main occupation of the inhabitants in the area was coalmining and they lived in small hamlets clustered round several small pits. In 1794 two Englishmen from Faversham in Kent opened a gunpowder mill, the first in Scotland, in the steep valley of the Gore Burn. They brought a significant workforce and houses to accommodate them were built at Stobmill.

Mr Dewar saw the need for a village where shopkeepers could set up businesses to service the needs of both the mill itself and the mill workers. A local builder was contracted to build substantial two-story buildings using stone from the Vogrie quarries and soon a variety of tradesmen had taken up residence.

Further blocks of land were leased to others and before long there was a small but prosperous community of grocers, bakers, butchers, shoemakers, publicans, tailors, dressmakers, drapers, masons, joiners and carters serving the surrounding villages and farms. A subscription school was eventually built and with the coming of the railway in 1847 gunpowder and coal could be transported to Edinburgh and Leith more easily. However, in 1865, following a disagreement between partners, the gunpowder mill ceased production.

During the second half of the nineteenth century, many of the shops in Main Street were re-built or re-faced. However, the more prosperous shopkeepers were no longer content to live in the flats above their shops and begun building themselves villas to the east of Main Street, along the Private Road.

In the mid nineteenth century more powerful water pumps were invented which allowed water to be drained from deeper mines, allowing Sir Robert Dundas, in 1854, to open the first of two large mines in Gorebridge further down the hill from the smaller mines, it being named the ‘Emily’ after his wife. This increased the size of the workforce and Sir Robert began building housing to accommodate them close to the new pit. After the sinking of the second new pit, the Gore, in 1878 even more workers houses and a number of public buildings were built.

The size of the village remained fairly stable after this until the coal mining industry was nationalised in 1947. After this, many miners were encouraged to move from the west of Scotland and a huge amount of local authority houses were built to accommodate them, more than doubling the size of the village. Since then, the size of Gorebridge has remained fairly stable, even after the mines closed in the 1960s with no new industries taking their place. Only two private housing estates have been built.

Gorebridge and District Historical Society

The Gorebridge and District Historical Society meets for talks from a variety of speakers on the last Tuesday of the month from September to June, excl December at 7pm in Greenhall Centre, Gorebridge.

Gorebridge and District Local History Society,
95 Hunterfield Road,
Gorebridge,
Midlothian,

01875 821247