An upcoming library talk will shed light on one of the most ambitious engineering projects undertaken in Scotland.

Archaeologist, Donald Adamson, and former mining consultant, Robert Yates, will reveal new findings about the 16th century plan to sink the first underwater pit shaft. Their talk at Dunfermline Carnegie Library and Galleries (DCLG) will look at how and why the Moat Pit and Culross Colliery complex was built.

Sir George Bruce, a Fife merchant, ship owner, and engineer, built a stone tower in the Firth of Forth, south of Culross, back in 1590.

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In the tower he sank a shaft 40ft to the coal seam below. He then had a sister shaft built on the shore to drain the undersea workings using an ‘Egyptian wheel’. The wheel was powered by three horses and had an endless chain of 36 buckets.

As 18 full buckets ascended, 18 empty buckets would descend. The experiment was successful, but was abandoned in 1625 after damage from flooding.

What’s left of the Moat Pit is situated just below the high-water mark on the foreshore at Culross.

The Coal Mine in the Sea: new findings on the remarkable history of the Moat Pit and Culross Colliery 1575-1676, will be held in DCLG’s Canmore Room on Thursday, March 21 at 11am.

Tickets can be purchased here.