THIS week, we take a brief look at the county’s coal mining heritage.

The earliest documented coal mines in Scotland lay between Tranent and Prestonpans.

As the industry developed in the county, the biggest employers (several hundred workers each) were, say Haddington’s History Society, Prestongrange and Prestonlinks mines, which closed in 1962 and 1964 respectively.

The former was re-incarnated as Prestongrange Mining Museum, just west of Prestonpans; the latter was completely cleared to make way for Cockenzie Power Station, which itself closed in 2013.

The last major coal mining enterprise in East Lothian was the opencast at Blindwells, which shut in the 1990s and is now the site of an expanding new town.