Contains digitised mine plan contours, spot heights and worked ground outlines on key coal seams from the Midland Valley in ASCII or ArcView format. Incomplete, only some seams and some areas digitised. All contours digitised on key seams, worked ground outlines simplified, spot heights digitised where no contours exist.

The collection includes colour microfilm aperture card copies of 7,170 plans of mine workings for coal and oil shale dating from 1872 onwards deposited on abandonment of a mine in compliance with the Coal Mines Regulation Act. An additional c.5,000 coal 'working' plans, mostly pre-dating 1872, formerly belonging to British Coal, have been added to the abandonment plan collection. The latter are held as black & white microfilm aperture cards. The collection includes plans of workings for other minerals, notably ironstone, where worked with coal. The microfilms are held on behalf of the Coal Authority who hold the original plans on behalf of the Health & Safety Executive (HSE). Original plans are held by the Coal Authority, Mansfield. No complete digital index held by BGS. An up to date finding aid is provided by the Coal Authority's paper 'Catalogue of Plans of Abandoned Mines'. The collection is believed to be fairly complete for mines abandoned since the 1872 Act. Plans were added from the British Coal plan collections to fill gaps in holdings, particularly for mines abandoned prior to 1872. Relates to coalfield areas of Central Scotland.

The collection comprises photographic half plate black & white negative and 35mm colour transparency copies of plans of mine workings for haematite, gypsum, limestone, baryte and metalliferous minerals for Cumbria dating from 1872 onwards. The plans were originally deposited in compliance with the Coal and Metalliferous Mines Regulation acts. The original plans are currently held by Cumbria County Record Office on behalf of the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) and total about 1240 plans. No digital index is available but a paper catalogue is provided by the Health & Safety Executive. As the collection relates to plans of mines abandoned after the 1872 Act, the holdings are fairly complete after this date. Note however, that the Metalliferous Mines Act originally applied only to mines employing more than 12 men, (eg. some limestone mines). Coal Authority may hold non-coal mine plans not covered by Mine Abandonment Plan collection.

The dataset comprises plans of various types relating to mining activity, including abandonment plans, gathered since the 1800s. Most were collected as part of the BGS mapping programme and the type and amount of data available will vary considerably. The coverage for Northern England and Scotland is more comprehensive than for the rest of the country. The plans include working copies, compilations and interpretations which may be copyright or confidential. The general nature of some of the plans means that they may not be applicable to a specific site. Current holdings over 60,000.

Index to the BGS collection of large scale or large format plans of all types including those relating to mining activity, including abandonment plans and site investigations. The Plans Database Index was set up c.1983 as a digital index to the collections of Land Survey Plans and Plans of Abandoned Mines. There are entries for all registered plans but not all the index fields are complete, as this depends on the nature of the original plan. The index covers the whole of Great Britain.