A History of Lead Mining in the Pennines [1 ed.]

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A History of

Lead Mining in the Pennines

A History of Lead Mining in the Pennines Arthur Raistrick Ph.D. M.Sc. SOMETIME KING’S

READER

COLLEGE,

IN

APPLIED

NEWCASTLE

GEOLOGY, UPON

TYNE.

Bernard fennings M.A. LECTURER

IN

HISTORY,

EXTRA

UNIVERSITY

OF

MURAL LEEDS

Longmans

DEPARTMENT,

LONGMANS,

GREEN

AND

CO

LTD

48 Grosvenor Street, London W.1 Associated companies, branches and representatives throughout the world © Arthur Raistrick and Bernard Jennings 1965 First published 1965 Made and printed in Great Britain by William Clowes and Sons, Limited, London and Beccles

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The publication of this book has been assisted by a subsidy from the Book Sponsorship Committee of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. I am very grateful for the help they have given me.

=

a

ee

A.R.

00390803

Contents Page Vil Xiil

Improvements in ore getting and smelting

228

Capital structure of the industry Transport, production and prices Wages, poor relief and health Social conditions and population movements The twentieth century. Future prospects

247 267

mn

1

mmm B&B WwW NH &

on

QAM

BP

WH

NO Oo

Mining in the Roman period and Dark Ages Twelfth century to fifteenth century Development in various fields to 1650 Techniques of ore getting The king’s regale—laws and customs Opening of the technical age Technical developments to 1780 Organisation of the industry The age of mechanisation, 1780-1880

O

Abbreviations Introduction

Index of mines, mineral veins and levels

General Index

23 66 g2 116 142 182

199

285, 309 328 339 342

Diagrams Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig.

1 2 3 4 Fig. 5

The Pennine mining fields Burtree Pasture Mine Level network at Old Gang Level network at Nent Head Water power on Grassington Moor

XV1 153

205 208 216

Plate Smelting House, Middleton Dale, Derbyshire facing p.124

Abbreviations Manuscript sources ARKENGARTHDALE

Estate Office, Leyburn. Bagshawe Collections, Central Library, Sheffield. Mr L. Barker, Healaugh. King’s College, University of Newcastle upon Tyne. Central Library, Newcastle upon Tyne. Chatsworth Estate Office, Bolton Abbey. North Riding Records Office, Northallerton.

MSS. BAGSHAWE BARKER

MSS

MSS

BEAUMONT BELL

MSS

BOLTON BOWER

MSS MSS

CLARKSON D.H.

MSS

Mr Clarkson, Keld.

MSS

Draycott

MSS

Hall papers, North Riding Record

Office, Northallerton. D.L. E

IOI

FAWCETT

MSS

JENNINGS MS

KIRKLEATHAM L.L.A.M.

L.L.C.M.

MSS

Duchy of Lancaster Papers, Public Record Office. Public Record Office, Exchequer, King’s Remembrancer. Fawcett family, Darlington. Lead Mining Industry in Swaledale. M.A. Thesis B. Jennings (1959), Leeds University, copy in the Brotherton Library. North Riding Record Office, Northallerton. MS volume ‘Aldstone Moor 18 Jan 1737 Accompt of Affairs pertaining to the Govr and Company for Smelting Lead etc. in London’, fol. 466, pp. 1737-1765. Raistrick MSS. ‘Fair Minute Books of the Court of Assistants of the London Lead Company.’ 37 vols. fo. 250 to 400, pp. 1692~1899, lacking one volume, and ‘General Court Minutes’, 3 vol. fo. Library of the Institution of Mining Engineers, Newcastle upon Tyne.

Papers and plans relating to the London Lead Company in Derbyshire, 1720-92, bound in folio volume, in Raistrick MSS. Vil

Lead Mining in the Pennines L.L.G.1.

MS.

L.L.M.CO.

L.L.M.J. L.L.P.B.

PEACOCK

‘A General Index to the Court Minutes,

Letters and Report Books from 1st Jan 1816 to 31st Dec 1868.’ 224 pp. fo. vellum. Raistrick MSS. ‘Minutes of the Committee of the Royal Mines Copper, 1697-1704.’ 4to. Institution of Mining Engineers, Newcastle upon Tyne. ‘Alston Mining Journal and Survey Book Sept. 1816 to May 1822. 390 pp. fo. Raistrick MSS. Large over-size volume of collected plans of the London Lead Company’s northern mines. Institution of Mining Engineers, Newcastle MSS

P.R.O. ADM. RAISTRICK MSS SWALE MSS

upon Tyne. Mr T. Peacock, Reeth.

Public Record Office, Admiralty Papers. Various books, papers, leases and plans relating to northern mines. Linton. Papers and letters of Philip Swale, bound in three

VYNER MSS YORKE MSS

Y.A.S. MSS

volumes,

the

property

of

Richmond

Monthly Meeting of the Society of Friends. Lodged at Friends House Library, London. Estate Office, Studley, Ripon. Papers belonging to the Yorke family, now at Halton Place, Hellifield. Calendared by National Register of Archives. Yorkshire Archeological Society, Manuscript Collections, 10, Park Place, Leeds.

Printed sources, and fournals ARCH.

Archaeologia.

ARCH. JOURN. CAL. CH. R. CAL. CL. R. CAL. F.R. CAL. L.R.

Archaeological Journal. Calendar of Charter Rolls. Calendar of Close Rolls. Calendar of Fine Rolls. Calendar of Liberate Rolls.

CAL. P.R.

Calendar of Patent Rolls.

CAL. S.P.D. CAL. TR. B.P. C.E.C.

Calendar of State Papers Domestic. Calendar of ‘Treasury Books and Papers. First Report of Commission for inquiring into employment of children in mines and manufactures, 1842. Vill

Abbreviations CHART.

BRID.

CHART.

FOUNT.

W. T. Lancaster. Chartulary of Bridlington Priory (Leeds 1912). W. T. Lancaster. Chartulary of Fountains Abbey (Leeds 1915). E. Hiibner. Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (Berlin 1873). | Journal of the Derbyshire Archaeological and Natural History Society. Early Yorkshire Charters. Yorkshire Archaeological Society, Record Series, Extra Series.

C.1.L.

D.A.J. E.Y.€.

Several volumes and dates. L. &

P.

HEN.

MEMS.

FOUNT.

MEMS.

GEOL.

VIII

Letters and Papers of Henry VIII. Record Commission. Memorials of Fountains Abbey. Surtees Society,

SURV.

Memoirs of the Geological Survey. Mineral Resources. XXV. Lead and Zinc Ores of Northumberland and Alston Moor (1923). Memoirs of the Geological Survey. Mineral Resources. XXVI. Lead and Zine Ores of Durham, Yorkshire and Derbyshire (1923). Extracts from the Records of the Merchant Adventurers of Newcastle upon Tyne. Surtees Society. 93 (1895), 101 (1899). The York Mercers and Merchant Adventurers 1356-1917. Surtees Society. 128 (1918). Peak District Mines Historical Society Bulletin. Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. Pipe Rolls, various. Pipe Roll Society. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries. Proceedings of the University of Durham Philosophical Society. Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London. Transactions of the Newcomen Society. Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, Yorkshire Archaeological Society. Yorkshire Archaeological Society, Record Series. York Civic Records. Y.R.S. 98 (1939), 103

42 (1863), 67 (1878), 130 (1918).

MINS.

ND.

MEMS.

GEOL.

SURV.

MINS.

YKS.

MERCH.

V.

NEWC.

MERCH.

V.

YORK.

P.D.M.H.S. P.G.A. PHIL. PIPE

TRANS. R.

PROC.

SOC.

P.U.D.P.S.

Q.J.G.S. T.N.S. Y.A.J.

ANT.

(1941). 1X

Lead Mining in the Pennines V.C.H.

CUMB.

V.C.H.

DERBY.

V.C.H.

DUR.

V.C.H.

YORKS.

V.C.H.

YK.

N.R.

Victoria Victoria Victoria Victoria Victoria Riding.

County County County County County

History of Cumberland. History of Derbyshire. History of Durham. History of Yorkshire. History of Yorkshire North

Printed books G. Agricola. De Re Metallica (Basle 1556). Translation by H. C. and L. H. Hoover (London 1912); reprint of this (New York 1950). G. Dickinson. Allendale and Whitfield (Newcastle 1903). M. B. Donald. Elizabethan Monopoles (Edinburgh 1961).

AGRICOLA.

DICKINSON. DONALD.

K.

DUNHAM.

FAREY. FORSTER.

HUNT

BR.M.

HUNT

MIN.

MANDER.

PERCY.

ST.

C. Dunham.

The Geology

of the Northern

Pennine Orefield. I. Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Great Britain (London 1948). J. Farey. A General View of the Agriculture and Minerals of Derbyshire. 3 vols. (1811-17). Westgarth Forster. A Treatise on a Section of the Strata from Newcastle-on-Tyne to the Mountain of Cross Fell, in Cumberland ; with Remarks on Mineral Veins in general. 1st ed. (Alston 1809); 2nd ed. (Alston 1821); 3rd ed. revised by W. Nall (Newcastle 1883). R. Hunt. British Mining ; a treatise on the history, practical development and future prospects of metalliferous mines in the United Kingdom (London 1884); 2nd ed. revised (London 1887). R. Hunt. Mineral Statistics for the United Kingdom, 1853-1881. 27 vols. (London 1854-82). J. Mander. The Derbyshire Miners’ Glossary ; or an explanation of the technical terms of the miners ... used in the King’s Field in the hundred of High Peak ... and in the open customary lordships ... also within the soc or wapentake of Wirksworth ... together with the mineral laws and customs (Bakewell 1824). J. Percy. The Metallurgy of Lead (London 1870).

Abbreviations PILKINGTON.

SOPWITH.

J. Pilkington. A View of the Present Derbyshire. 2 vols. (Derby 1789); (Derby and London 1803). T. Sopwith. An Account of the Mining of Alston Moor, Weardale and Teesdale

State of 2nd ed. Districts (Alnwick

1833).

URE

DICT.

R. Hunt. Ure’s Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures, and Mines, containing a clear exposition of thei principles and practice. 7th ed. (London 1878-

1879). WALLACE,

W. Wallace. Alston Moor,

its Pastoral People,

its Mines and Miners (Newcastle 1890).

X1

&

Introduction Among the natural resources of the country, other than the products of agriculture, lead probably shared with iron a foremost place during most of historical time. The demand for iron was steady but widespread throughout the communities in every part of the country from early times; plough irons and other furnishings, and simple tools such as mattock, crow bar, axe and knives, pro-

vided a continuing domestic market and supported a large number of iron makers and blacksmiths, located widely over the whole

country. The usable ores of iron are of wide occurrence — and with charcoal they are to be had almost anywhere — and each district

had its iron makers capable of supplying all ordinary demands. The requirements of the armed knight of the Norman period and

the Middle Ages for weapons of iron and steel brought forward the specialist iron worker and armourer, using special quality iron which was often imported, but at the same time the local smith made his constant small supplies from local sources.

In the case of lead the picture is very different because of the geological nature and occurrence of the ores. Unlike iron ores, which are to be found in a great many geological formations and

in a variety of usable forms, the only ore of lead which occurs in quantity and form capable of economic getting and smelting is galena, the sulphide of lead. Nearly all the ores of ironare ‘bedded’, that is they occur in layers in other rock formations, occurring in shales of many geological ages, often as more or less continuous layers of nodules of wide extent and constant position in the geological succession. Thus in the Coal Measures, and also in the Millstone Grits, layers of ironstone nodules are of frequent occurrence and are found over most of the area — hundreds of square miles — where these rocks come to the surface. It is possible to find iron ores in most parts of England, in one formation or another. In sharp contrast with this, lead ores occur in mineral veins and only in a limited number of mineralised areas. They tend to be confined to a few geological horizons, nearly all occurring in the Xiil

Lead Mining in the Pennines Carboniferous system and only a few in some of the older formations. These rocks@of Carboniferous age are the backbone of the

upland regions of the Pennines and do not contribute to the structure of the Midland Plain and the eastern lowland half of Britain.

Mineral veins are generally associated with areas into which a mass of granite rock has been intruded, and they surround this mass and traverse the rocks around and above it. In some areas,

such as Cornwall and Devon, the granite has been exposed at the surface of the ground and the mining areas surround it; while in others, like the Pennines, the granite is still deep buried but its presence is deduced by geological reasoning, which can sometimes be substantiated by geological exploration.! In such an area, which can be referred to as a ‘mineral field’ or, when worked, as a ‘mining field’, the important characteristic is

the presence of a system of fractures in the rocks, more or less complex, which are known geologically as faults. These are closed fissures which are nearly vertical and have great lateral extent,

often running for several miles. ‘They represent lines along which the rocks have fractured and yielded under the stresses of the intrusion of the granite or of folding, and along which adjustment has been made by movements both vertical and (to a less extent)

horizontal. Into some of these cracks solutions containing metallic compounds, generally oxides or sulphides, have been injected and in cooling have deposited their solutes. There is a recognisable

order of deposition and generally the compounds of metals are accompanied by some non-metallic minerals, called by the miner, ‘gangue’ — such as calcite (calcium carbonate), barites (bar1um sulphate), quartz (oxide of silicon) or fluor spar (calcium fluoride); these, together with the metallic ores which generally make only a

minor portion of the vein stuff, fill the fissure. The ore may be dispersed in patches or strings through the gangue or may be a strong rib with side walls of gangue, but it is usually of only such

a width (a few inches would be a good vein) that much of the gangue and even the country rock forming the walls of the vein has to be excavated to get enough width for working; thus 1K. C. Dunham. The genesis of the north Pennine ore deposits. Q.7.G.S. 90 (1934) 689-720. Epigenetic Mineralisation in Yorkshire. Proc. Yorks. Geol. Soc. 32 (1959) 1-30. Granite beneath the northern Pennines. Nature, 190 (1961) 899-900.

XIV

Introduction

processes of ‘dressing’ become necessary to separate the gangue and ore and to concentrate the ore as much as possible. This cleaned and prepared ore, ready for smelting, is called ‘concentrates’, and many mine returns of production are stated in tons of concentrates. The concentrate may vary from about 70 per cent of lead ore to more than 80 per cent in a modern plant, so that there is a difference between the production of concentrates and of lead ore. The lower efficiency of the earlier methods of separation means that in the reject from old washing floors a percentage of ore has been left unrecovered from the material which has gone over the dressing floors. This is often a valuable ore worth recovery in part

by a modern plant, so that today, with little or no actual mining; there is still an industry concerned with the recovery of ore and useful gangues from the reject of former mine dressing plants. When a fault fractures a variable series of rocks, such as the alternating beds of limestone, shale and sandstone commonly found in the Lower Carboniferous series of the mining districts,

it is seen that the fracture is much nearer vertical in the hard beds than in the soft ones, and with the vertical movement of the fault

the fracture thus becomes wider and is more openly preserved in the hard beds than in the soft beds. The more open hard-bed fissures have frequently offered a lateral passage for the spread of the ascending mineralising solutions, so that richer vein deposits tend to be found in the thicker limestones and hard sandstones,

and veins tend to be poor or barren in shales and soft sandstones. The ore occurs in ‘shoots’, for which a definition has been given as ‘a continuous body of ore which may be worked with profit or with hope of profit’. In general there are two very different forms

of ore shoot and these affect the methods of working very materially. A ‘ribbon shoot’ is the common form of vein filling; it generally has walls of limestone or, less commonly, of hard sandstone,

and may be 50 to 60 ft high, or more in thick beds, and can extend laterally along the vein for a few hundred feet. Sometimes ribbon shoots occur above one another in several of the beds of limestone, where, between them, the vein is barren in the shales. A second

form of ore shoot is called a ‘flat’, in Derbyshire a ‘pipe’, and is the result of metasomatic (replacement) action between the mineral solutions and the limestone walls of the vein, by which the

limestone is more or less replaced by ore for some distance on each XV

Lead Mining in the Pennines side of the vein fissure. Flats are thus horizontal sheets usually only a few feet in thickness, though very exceptionally they have

reached 20 or 30 ft. They extend on each side of the vein for vary-

Newcastle

OS

NORTH !

ee

oe

PENNINES

Alston Moor

2

Allendales

3 4 5

Derwent Weardale Teesdale

| ! Manchester oO

YORKSHIRE

nee

6

Swaledale

7 8

Arkengarthdale Wensleydale

9 10

Greenhow Hill Wharfedale

DERBYSHIRE 11 High Peak 12 13 14

Ashover Winster Ashbourne

Wirksworth

Fig. 1.—The Pennine mining fields

ing width up to a hundred feet or more and run along the vein for several hundred feet. Flats are always associated with a vein

which has acted as a feeder channel, and they are mainly to be XVI

Introduction

found at particular levels in the thickest limestones. In the Alston area the Great Limestone has in many places three flats each of a few feet thickness, generally called the High, Middle and Low

flats, and separated by layers of limestone little or not at all affected by metasomatism. Ore shoots cannot be predicted, ‘so mining is always bound to be chancy. When the miner has discovered a vein his working may prove to be on a shoot, when the reward may be very-great; on the other hand the vein may be strong but

filled with gangues, which until recent years had little or no value. If the miner can keep working long enough to test the vein laterally and is fortunate enough to work into a shoot, then he can continue,

but this uncertainty and the constant necessity for exploration in what is called ‘dead’ ground, unproductive of ore, makes mining essentially the job for large capital reserves competent to tide over

a barren period, and with interests spread wide enough to ensure some paying work in one place while dead work and exploration

is carried on in another.

|

In the Pennines there are three mineral fields which are related to the geological structure of the area. The Pennines can be divided geologically into three ‘blocks’ within each of which the

structure approximates to a shallow dome.’ hese have been called for reference the Alston Block, from the Tyne valley to Stainmoor; the Askrigg Block, from Stainmore to the Aire valley; and the Derbyshire Dome, which includes the central area Ashborne to the

Peak. Within each of these three ‘blocks’ mineralisation is extensive in a system of close-set veins, and each area has had a separate history of development. The Alston Block includes a very wide

area which, for convenience both of description and in development, is subdivided into five mining fields: Alston Moor, the drainage area of the South Tyne and its tributaries, with the western fringe of the Cross Fell range; the drainage of the East and West Allen rivers; the drainage of the Wear and its tributaries;

the drainage of the upper Derwent; and the drainage of the river Tees and its main tributary the Lune.

In Yorkshire there are two important fields, the first is the drainage area of the river Swale and its tributary the Arkle Beck, along with the fringe area in Wensleydale. The other area centres on upper Wharfedale, and the Greenhow area within the Nidd

drainage. This field extends in a fringe area across towards Settle XV1i

Lead Mining in the Pennines and on the south has a small outlier at Cononley in Airedale. The

Derbyshire

field has two main areas of working,

around

Wirksworth and Ashover, and in the High Peak. Historically these several subdivisions have been worked as separate ‘mining fields’

and will be described as such, though geologically there are only the three dominant areas. The historical development of the mining fields has in each case progressed through comparable stages, and for convenience of description these have been followed in the arrangement of this book. The period from the earliest times, Roman and possibly pre-Roman, up to the mid-seventeenth century was marked by isolated exploitations, mainly by shallow surface workings and

using primitive dressing and smelting techniques, and the organisation was by individual mines and small partnerships of a few miners. The larger figure was possibly only represented by the merchants who bought either lead or ore and dealt with the export and sale of the finished products. A second phase arises with the introduction in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries of new techniques in dressing and smelting and the use of short drainage levels

with

deeper

underground

workings.

The

reverberatory

furnace and ore hearth belong to this period, with the demand for finer dressing of concentrates. Towards the end of this period longer levels or ‘soughs’ for drainage, and the introduction of the steam engine for pumping, carry the phase to about 1780. It was

in this phase that the larger companies arose, such as the London Lead Company, and the Beaumont concerns, controlling scores of mines, leasing whole areas of many square miles extent, and con-

ducting all processes. Ore getting and dressing, smelting, refining, merchanting and sometimes exporting were all carried out by the

one concern. From about 1780 to 1880 there was a period when many of the mines were mechanised, generally with water power, but in a few cases for pumping only with steam power. Great mechanical improvements were made in all processes, and dressing changed almost entirely to machine methods. It is difficult to give a true picture of the scale of the industry,

but perhaps an indication might be found in the available figures which, though not complete, are still to be had for the Alston Block area, or part of it, from the seventeenth century. The other XVI

Introduction

two areas must approximate to a similar scale of working, and it

will not be unreasonable to take the northern figures as a very approximate half of the total output of the Pennine fields. Dunham! suggests that the round figure of 3,000,000 tons of lead concentrates represents a very near approximation to the total yield of the northern Pennine field. From 1725 to 1870 the amount of silver refined from the lead, in the areas of the London Lead Company

and the Beaumont mines, was approximately 54 million ounces. From these approximations it should be clear that the lead mining industry had very great economic significance for the country, and is worthy of a history of its own. An

attempt has been made

in this volume

to give a fairly

complete outline of technical developments and to illustrate these by reference to particular mines and events in the various mining fields. The outstanding features in the development of each field have been given, but in this section it has not been possible to use more thana fraction of the detail available for individual mines and mills. The account of organisation, wages, production and so on can only be a summary which includes of necessity many generalisations based upon a great and differing range of material. The interest shown in the history of mines and mining, through-

out the country at the present time, is largely the result of outdoor activities. Several pot-holing clubs have been attracted to the exploration of old shafts, and some societies have been formed, such as the Peak District Mines Historical Society, which combine a study of records of mining with the actual underground exploration of such mines as can be entered with safety. It is realised by these societies, and many others, that the visual evidence of past mining activities is rapidly disappearing, and more museums are now displaying old mining tools, and accumulating mine plans and manuscripts. This present history, we hope, provides a general background for the Pennines, against which the local detail now being sought out by so many young folk can be set in its proper perspective.

In general the technical and mining history, with the studies of the London Lead Company, have been the work of Arthur 1K. C. Dunham. The production of galena and associated minerals in the northern Pennines; with comparative statistics for Great Britain. Trans. Inst. Min. & Met. 53

(1944). X1X

Lead Mining in the Pennines Raistrick; and the economics, capital, labour and leases the work

of Bernard Jennings. The division of responsibility is approximately Chapters 1 to 7, 9, 10 and 15, Raistrick; and Chapters 8

and 11-14, Jennings. The whole work, however, has been reviewed and discussed jointly, and the authors accept joint responsibility for its form and presentation. The work of one author, Arthur Raistrick, was done while on the staff of King’s College, Durham University, now the University of Newcastle upon Tyne.

Chapter 1

Mining in the Roman Period and Dark Ages It has been known for at least two centuries that the concerned with lead mining in parts of the Pennines, of their ventures is not yet in a completely told form. for their mining depends largely upon archaeological

Romans were but the story The evidence data, material

that has been found in a few of the excavated Roman sites, acci-

dental finds and the rare traces of actual mining operations which can be recognised with a degree of certainty. There is unfortunately no adequate account of mining by any writer of Roman times; and among the many ancient authorities who mention Britain, scarcely any refer to its mineral wealth or to its mining industry. Pliny the Elder, who wrote his Natural History before A.D. 77, only refers

directly to British mining where he makes a brief statement that lead was so plentiful that some kind of law restricting its production had to be introduced,! a remarkable parallel with some recent restrictive actions in British mining and productivity. Tacitus, the son-in-law and biographer of the Roman Governor of Britain, Agricola, refers vaguely to ‘gold and silver and other metals, the reward of conquest’, but makes no statement about them that tells us anything of importance. From historical and archaeological

sources jointly we now know that the Romans had occupied the lowlands of Britain by the year A.D. 50, and by that time they had already occupied the Mendip Hills, where the lead mining was organised almost at once.2 The mines in Flintshire were producing

lead in the reign of Vespasian, A.D. 69-79, and pigs of lead from Shropshire belong to the time of Hadrian, A.D. 117-138. As lead 1 Pliny. Natural History, 34.17.164. 2 O. Davies. Roman Mines in Europe (Oxford 1935). J. W. Gough. Mines of Mendip (Oxford 1930) 1off. I

I

Lead Mining in the Pennines was produced in Yorkshire by A.D. 81 it seems unlikely that mines in Derbyshire were overlooked until the time of Hadrian, as might appear from the lack of an earlier date on the pigs of lead from that county. The Romans had considerable skill in mining and in organisation, and already controlled a flourishing industry in Spain, from which a fund of experience and technical knowledge could be drawn. When they came to occupy the British mining centres it was a quick matter to apply their organisation and methods to areas which were already the scene of native mining. In general the Roman provincial governments accepted the principle that mines and quarries were state property, though the position was somewhat complicated legally,! and there is evidence that most of the British mines were regarded and administered as such. The property might be administered in more than one manner either directly in the Emperor’s interest by procurators; it might be under direct military control; or it could be leased to private companies. The procurators were usually freed slaves, and they could either work the mines themselves or let them out to companies of individuals, charging a rent or ‘royalty’ which was often fifty per cent of the produce. This revenue passed directly to the Emperor’s private use and purse.” In Yorkshire the evidence for Roman mines consists of pigs of smelted lead which have a cast-on inscription. These have been found in or near mining areas where there are traces of early working, some of which have been doubtfully attributed to the Romans. In Derbyshire many more pigs of lead have been found, but the traces of mining are only doubtfully recognised, as there has been such extensive working and reworking of the old mining sites that very little can with certainty be referred to the earliest periods. The pigs of lead are ingots, oblong in shape, slightly wider at the top surface than at the base, and having on the base a cast-on inscription made by impressing letters into the mould which are then reproduced in relief on the lead pig.3 Four pigs 1 Q, Davies. [bid. 3-4. 2R. G. Collingwood and J. N. L. Myers. Roman Britain and the English Settlements (Oxford 1937) 228. 3 A. Way. Enumeration of blocks or pigs of lead and tin, relics of Roman metallurgy, discovered in Great Britain. Arch. Journ. 16 (1859) 22-40. 2

Mining in the Roman Period and Dark Ages have been found in Yorkshire, two of them in 1735 on the side of an old trackway near Hayshaw Bank in the parish of Dacre, Nidder-

dale. In a letter to the President and Fellows of the Royal Society1 it is related that they were found by a countryman who was riding that way when his horse’s foot slipped into a hole covered with ling. He dismounted to see what was the trouble, and, by thrusting his stick into the hole, realised the presence of what.turned out to be the two blocks of metal. The pigs of lead were almost identical and had on the narrow base the same inscription in raised letters: IMP:

CAES:

DOMITIANO:

AVG:

COS:

VII

The length of the pigs on the largest face is 234 in, the width 53 in, and the weight of one of them 156]b and the other 155 1b. In addition to the main inscription each pig has cast on one side the word or letters BRIG. One of these pigs is now in the British Museum and the other is kept at Ripley Castle, Yorkshire, in the possession of the Lord of the Manor.” At a place called Nussey Knott, an abrupt limestone knoll on which there are many traces of mining both ancient and modern, and about 4 miles west of Hayshaw Bank, another pig was found ‘hidden among the stones of the moor’ and this had an inscription including the name TRAJAN.

It was said to be about ‘half the

weight of those now smelted’ and would probably be of the same length and breadth as the others but thinner, from a partly filled mould.3 A fourth pig of lead was found at the Hurst Mine, in Swaledale, near the village of Marrick. This pig had the name of HADRIAN on it,* but this and the Trajan pig have been lost and, all efforts to trace them having failed, it is to be feared that at some time in the past they have been sold for scrap metal and melted down. The inscriptions on the pigs enable them to be dated with certainty, especially in the case of the Hayshaw Bank pigs where 1S. Kirkshaw. A letter from the Rev. Mr S. Kirkshaw to Wm. Sloane Esq. F.R.S. concerning two pigs of lead, found near Ripley, with this inscription on them IMP. CAES DOMITIANO AVG COS VII. Phil. Trans. 41 (1735) 560. 2 A. Raistrick. A pig of lead with Roman inscription. Y.A.7. 30 (1930) 181-183; CLL. 7, 1207.. —3'J. Lucas. ‘gala lead mines, in O/d Yorkshire. W. Wheater. Ser. 2 (London

1885) 1, 49-53. 4H. Speight. Romantic Bishouméshice

(London 1897) 207.

3

Lead Mining in the Pennines the exact year is indicated by the form of the emperor’s titles. These can be expanded as Imperator Caesar Domitiano Augustus. Consul VII, these titles indicating the specific year A.D. 81, that of Domitian’s seventh period as consul. The Trajan and Hadrian pigs can only be placed somewhere within the periods of their reigns, that is A.D. gI-117 and A.D. 117-138. Although many more pigs of lead have been found in Derby-

shire, the question of their date is still a matter of speculation, except in the case of one which belongs to the reign of Hadrian.! The Derbyshire pigs with their inscriptions are as follows. I. IMP. CAES. HADRIANI. AVG. MET. LVT. (A.D. 117-138). This was found in 1777 about a foot below the surface of the

ground on Cromford Nether Moor. Weight 127 Ib, now in the British Museum. 2. L. ARVCONI. VERECVND. METAL. LVTVD. Found in 1783 on Matlock Moor. Weight 83-84 Ib, British Museum.

3. PRVBRI. ABASCANT. METALL. LVTVDARES. Found on Tansley Moor, 2 miles north-east of Matlock, in 1894. Weight 175 lb, British Museum. 4, 5,6, 7 and 8. Cc. IVL. PROTI. BRIT. LVT. EX. ARG. Of the five pigs with this inscription, one was found at Hexgrave Park,

8 miles east of Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, early in the nineteenth century; the second was found at South Cave, near Brough on Humber, where the Roman road from Lincoln to York crosses the

river. This was found in 1890. The remaining three with this inscription along with another, No. 9, were found in 1940 at Brough on Humber at a depth of 4 ft in what appears to be blown sand. Two feet below them was the old road way connecting Brough with the Roman fortress at York. Roman pottery of the second and third centuries was associated with the pigs but in such a way as to give no direct help in establishing their date. All these

pigs from Brough are in the Hull Museum and the one from Hexgrave Park in the British Museum. The weights vary a little, being 184, 135, 190, 192 and 196 lb. g. SOC. LVT. BRIT. EX. ARG. Found with the previous ones at Brough. Weight:193 1b, now in the Hull Museum. 10, 11, 12 and 13. TI. CL. TR. LVT. BR. EX. ARG. These 1G. C. Whittick. Roman mining in Britain 7.N.S. 12 (1931-32) 57-77. I. A. Richmond. 7.N.S. 20 (1939-40) 145.

Mining in the Roman Period and Dark Ages were found at Broomers Hill, Pulborough, Sussex, close to the Roman road of Stane Street, but the occurrence of LvT in the inscription shows that they were cast in Derbyshire. Weight 184 Ib. 14. TI. CL. TR. LVT. BR. EX. ARG. Similar to the previous ones but found on Matlock Moor, north of Matlock Bank, Derby-

shire. Weight 173 lb. 15. A pig of lead 20 in x 54 in on top surface and 3 in wide on the base was found in digging the foundations for the new Board School at Bradwell, near Castleton, at a site near the Roman road

from Buxton to Brough, in the year 1894.1 The inscriptions on these pigs can be expanded and translated as follows: 1. Property of Imperator Caesar Hadrianus Augustus; from the mines of Lutudarum.

}

2. Property of Lucius Aruconius Verucundus; from the mines of Lutudarum. 3. Property of Publius Rubrius Abascantus; from the mines of

Lutudarum. 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8. Property of Caius Julius Protus; British lead from Lutudarum, from the silver works.

9. Property of the company (soci) of the British mines of Lutudarum, from the silver works. 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14. Property of Tiberius Claudius Tr(ypho), from the British mines of Lutudarum, from the silver works.

Of all the inscriptions given above only one can be dated, the rest being peculiar in Britain in not carrying the name or titles of an emperor but having private names upon them. All of the undated pigs include in the inscription either the word LVT or LVTVD or in one case, LVTVDARES, and the contraction on the

Hadrian metallum district.2 between

pig, MET. LVT agrees with them. This is a contraction of Lutudarense and refers to British mines in the Matlock A place is named in the Ravenna list as Lutudaron, Chester (Deva) and Little Chester (Derventio) near

1 F. Haverfield. On the inscription on the pig of lead found on Matlock Moor, Derbyshire. Proc. Soc. Ant. 2nd ser. 15 (1894) 188-1809. 2J. A. Smythe. Roman pigs of lead from Brough. 7.N.S. 20 (1939-40)

i

in thought that the German refiners could save the queen £20,000 at least. The low-value coin was called in and melted and the resultant metal refined for the

separation of pure silver, which when reduced to sterling was recoined. On the completion of the recoinage there would be a body of skilled refiners available for employment in other parts of the country. 1 §.P.D. Eliz. 240, No. 133, 1591-94, 155-56. 3 S.P.D. Eliz. 14, 43 & 55, 1547-80, 163-4. QI

2 Donald, 25-27. 4 Jbid., 8,160. 5 Jbid. 11, 161.

Chapter 5

The King’s Regale — Laws and Customs From

the thirteenth

century three mining

fields — Mendip,

Derbyshire and Alston Moor — have been notable as each of them possessing a set of laws and customs, juries and barmasters, by

which the operation of the mines and the privileges of the miners have been closely regulated. For many centuries these three areas were each commonly referred to as ‘the King’s field’, being held by the Crown or held directly from the Crown, and paying cope

or lot to the king on all production from the mines. The origin of the laws and customs seems to rest in a bargain between the King and those men who became miners on his fields, and in these

bargains the King’s regale or royalty emerges and can be seen to become established as a normal feature of all mining. The advan-

tages of the customs of the mines was appreciated so that from time to time they were either claimed by or offered to other areas. The King’s mines in Devon were for a time worked by these ‘customs’, and at one period the miners of Grinton claimed to share the customs and protections prevalent in Alston Moor, which they had enjoyed in the time of Henry II. This protection was extended to Swaledale in a mandate of 1219,! but there is no evidence that the laws as such were ever specifically applied or that they persisted in Swaledale. In the course of the centuries the laws

and customs of Derbyshire became widely known as Derbyshire miners were taken to Devon and moved to many other areas, and

fragments of the laws passed into mining tradition in the new fields. “According to the ancient customs of the mine’ becomes a common phrase in mining agreements in contexts which show that it is referring to a body of traditional practice common to most 1 Record Commission. Rotuli Litterarum Clausarum, 1, 409. 92

The King’s Regale—Laws and Customs miners, rather than to ‘customs’ granted and set down for that particular area. In Derbyshire the mines which'were mentioned in the Domesday Survey were in the King’s manors or King’s fields of High Peak

and Wirksworth Wapontake, or Low Peak. Soon after the Conquest the mines were put in charge of William Peveril, but in the opening years of the twelfth century William Peveril the younger was disgraced and the manors held by the family were taken back

into the hands of the Crown.! The mines for a short time were worked directly on behalf of the Crown, but from time to time they were leased out to individuals at ‘farm’ for a fixed rent, which

occasionally dropped into arrears. In 1130 Robert de Ferrers was the ‘farmer’ of the mines and accounted for the rents.” The way in which the mines were granted suggests that the King’s control of them was exercised in virtue of his position as the feudal lord of the soil and not solely as King. Few of the earlier grants impose a royalty payment proportioned to the production, but most take.an outright rent or ‘farm’ of the mine, which is

either paid directly for the mines or at times is included in the farm of the whole manor. In the thirteenth century the Crown

lawyers tended to regard the Peak mines as the King’s property, but the royal right in working them was conditioned by the customs of the miners, and the main profit to the King was from the thirteenth dish of ore produced. In the Annals of Burton there is a record in 1237 of a petition for relief from certain oppressions,‘ and this includes a note of the support given by the King to his miners in mining or digging up church lands against the parson’s will. In this way there arises evidence that ‘custom of the mine’ and the payment of the ‘King’s dish of ore’ was being recognised in law. The appeal to customs in the many disputes over trespasses in search of mines became more frequent, and in 1288 the matter was

made the subject of an inquiry at which the first statement of customs was agreed upon, and these became the foundations on which the later expanded codes of ‘laws’ were built.5 1 3 4 5 Misc.

V.C.H. Derby, 2, 323. 2 V.C.H. Derby, 2, 324. Accounts of John de Grey, 1242-43. SC6/825/16. : Cott. MSS. Vesp. E. iii, fol. 26.b. Inquiry at Ashbourne, Saturday after Trinity Sunday, 16 Ed. I. Cal. Inq. 3, 222

93

Lead Mining in the Pennines In the more northerly Pennines the claim of the Crown to possess the mines and to work them is well documented in Alston

Moor and parts of Northumberland. A large area on the borders of Cumberland and Northumberland was known as the franchise of Tynedale and included the parishes of Alston, Kirkhaugh,

Whitfield, Knaresdale, Simonburn and part of Haltwhistle. This franchise was held by the King of Scotland, who did homage to the

King of England for it, collected taxes and held civil jurisdiction throughout its area. In the grant of this franchise, however, the mines

were

reserved

to the English

Crown

and

all the ‘yura

regalia’ were collected for the King by the sheriff of Cumberland.! The earliest evidence for medieval mining in Alston Moor is the very unsatisfactory record of a find of coins of William Rufus (1087-1100) near Garrigill.2 The Pipe Roll of Henry I records for 1130 that the burgesses of Carlisle rented a silver mine, and this is named in several subsequent records as ‘the silver mine of Carlisle’, ‘the mine of Alderstane’ (Alston) and other variants, throughout the twelfth century. In 1158 William the son of Erembald paid 100 marks for the mine, and the next year paid {100. It is suggested by Hodgson that Erembald may have been a German adventurer, and this suggestion has been received favourably.3 For several years after 1159 the mine was held by a tenant at {100 annual

rent, but the management reverted to William son of Erembald. From 1167 onward there were many signs that the mine was not

prosperous, as the farmer fell more and more into arrears, and by 1179 the arrears of rent are noted as exceeding £2,000. The mines then passed to other hands, but the debt was continued. Much of the silver obtained from these mines was used in the royal mint at Carlisle.4+ In the second half of the twelfth century the interest in mines was stimulated by developments on the Continent. The year 1170 was marked by the discovery of the ores of lead rich in silver in the

veins of the Freiberg district of Saxony. Rich ores of copper and of silver-lead were already being exploited in the Rammelsberg,

near Goslar in the Hartz, and the whole mining industry was ripe 1 Trans. Cumb. & West. Ant. & Arch. Soc. n.s. 31 (1931) 8-20. _ 2 Wallace, 99. 3 V.C.H. Cumb. 2, 338. 4 A full account. of these transactions has been given by J. Walton, The mediaeval mines of Alston. Trans. Cumb. & West. Ant. & Arch, Soc. n.s. 45 (1945) 22-33.

94

The King’s Regale—Laws and Customs for expansion.! Population over the whole of Europe experienced a rapid increase in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and agriculture was also expanding. Landowners, both lay and ecclesiastic,

were embarking upon ambitious building programmes and venturing in trade, and were feeling the need for increased revenues. The discovery of the continental mines encouraged the overlords everywhere to take an interest in the mineral wealth of their own estates and to explore ways of securing as much benefit as possible

by its exploitation. Men with the necessary skill and enterprise were sought out and encouraged to open mines by the offer of

favourable terms and special privileges, though the overlords naturally tried to secure as large a share as possible of any profit accruing from them.? The claims to a royalty or a proportionate part of the produce of a mine, the so-called ‘regalian right’ comparable with the regalian rights of coinage, only emerged slowly in this period and was of feudal origin. Nef suggests that it is most likely that it arose from the overlord’s claim to treasure trove on his manors and to

his right to dispose of the manorial ‘waste’ in much of which the mining was to be located. It was to the overlord’s advantage to

have the mines worked, and the portion of the produce which he claimed was in reality part of a bargain made with the miner in lieu of demanding a rent of the mine. The bargain was often made for a tenth of all the produce of the mine, and conditions were made which would attract miners to work the ores and would also safeguard the overlord’s interests. During the twelfth century there was a tendency on the Continent to claim the Bergregal or overlord’s share as a sovereign

regale, and to separate the rights in mines, and to the revenue arising from them, from the rights belonging to the tenure of land. With the development of this view the King more and more assumed his right to dispose of mines independent of the estates on which they occurred, and, when it suited his convenience, to delegate the regale or royalty to some other person. The assump-

tion of these claims on minerals and part of the profits of mining was accompanied by the acceptance of some administrative responsibility, and to ensure the working of the mines the King usually 1 Agricola. De Veteribus et Novis Metallis (1546) 393. 2 J. U. Nef. Cambridge Economic History of Europe, 2 (1952) 436-437.

95

Lead Mining in the Pennines

offered protection and privileges to the miners. The assumption of the full regale was made in England during the thirteenth century when the King claimed authority to dispose of all gold and silverbearing ores and to collect royalties from the mines. An intermediate stage can be recognised in the late twelfth

century when the King held many more manors in which mines occurred, either directly as royal demesne, or as manors which had fallen to the Crown through the attainder or failure of the feudal tenancy. In the bishopric of Durham, for instance, the King

held the whole bishopric and its revenues between the death of one bishop and the appointment of his successor. In these cases the King exercised his claim to dispose of the produce of the mines and at various times made gifts or sales of lead from estates in the North,! mainly for the constructional work either at Windsor Castle, or to several of the monastic communities, of whom most were then engaged in a building programme. In county Durham, King Stephen by a charter? made a grant

of the mineral rights in Weardale to the bishop of Durham, who was

his nephew,

Hugh

Pudsey.

As

the bishop

had

exercised

mineral rights at an earlier date than this, it is suggested that the charter only related to any production of gold and silver which might be associated with the ores of lead. At the death of Pudsey the bishopric was held for a time by the King and the accounts of the mines were returned to the Exchequer.3 The Honour of Richmond, Yorkshire, had been the fee of the counts of Britany from the time of the Norman Conquest. In 1145 count Alan confirmed the gift of Acaris to the monks of Jervaulx (Fors) Abbey, and added the right to dig ores of lead in Wensleydale forest.4 He retained the mines of Swaledale, which were

chiefly in the parish of Grinton, and also those of the forest of Arkengarthdale, using lead from them for the roofing and other constructional requirements of Richmond Castle. In 1171 Conan, the son who succeeded Alan, died, and the Honour of Richmond was taken into the King’s hands and its finances were administered and 1 Much of the detail of these gifts and purchases is found in the Pipe Rolls and Liberate Rolls. 2R. Surtees. History and Antiquities of the County Palatine of Durham, 1 (Sunderland 1816) App. 126. V.C.H. Dur. 2, 348. 3 Pipe R. 13 & 24 Hen. III. 4 E.Y.C. 4 (1935) 26, No. 24.

96

The King’s Regale—Laws and Customs accounted for by Ranulf de Glanville until 1183. After that year they passed with the mines to Duke Geoffrey, son of Henry II, who in 1181 married Earl Conan’s daughter Constance. The Crown, how-

ever, had retained the custody of the castles and some of the lands, and in 1186 on the death of Geoffrey again took over the control

of the whole Honour. The King thus had control of the mines of Richmondshire, except those in the occupation of Jervaulx Abbey in Wensleydale, and was able to dispose of their produce, sending large amounts of lead, to a total of over 700 tons, to various monas-

tic churches both in England and France.! At the same time comparable amounts of lead were sent or requisitioned by the King from the King’s fields of Alston Moor and Derbyshire. Such large requisitioning of lead from all the fields must have been one of the

great stimuli which assisted their development in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The assumption of regalian rights on the part of the Crown, extending over base metals such as lead and copper, as well as gold and silver, was a gradual process of which some early stages can be recognised in Alston Moor. As early as 1131 the mine of Alston is noted in the Pipe Roll of 31 Henry I, where it is stated that a vein of silver was discovered and kept in the possession of the Crown so that its silver might be used in the mint at Carlisle.2 It is noted at the same time that the mine had been worked before that time, but the earlier work, apart from this one reference,

cannot be documented. In the thirteenth century the King took a direct interest in the development of the mine, and to secure sufficient workmen he issued a series of protections and mandates. The very poor state of the mine and the accumulating arrears of rent during the twelfth century must have determined the Crown to assume this more direct oversight. Miners were collected and sent to the mine, and

a series of protections and mandates were issued along with the granting of privileges which would consolidate the miners as a community working under the King’s sheriff. Letters of protection were issued in 1222 and 12293 to miners in Cumberland, and in 1223 to the King’s miners in Northumberland and Yorkshire in what became a common form. 1 Pipe R. 26 to 30 Hen. II. 2 Pipe R. 31 Hen. I, 142. V.C.H. Cumb. 2, 338.

q

97

3 Cal. PR. 1216-25, 339, 366.

Lead Mining in the Pennines 1222 De protectione. Minatores Cumberland habent litteras de protectione usque ad etatem domini regis. Teste H. xxtiy. Aug. 1223 De protectione. Minatores domini regis de comitatu Eboraci et Northumberlande pertinentes ad bailliam minerie de comitatu Cumberlande habent litteras de protectione usque ad etatem domini regis. xvj die Februarii.

The mandate of 1235 was in wider terms, issued!: to all the king’s miners in the county of Cumberland to come to his mine of Aldeston to work therein, knowing that the king is granting to those miners who do come the liberties and free- customs which his miners of those parts have been accustomed to have in the time of his predecessors. Mandate to the sheriff to cause all the said miners to come to work in the mines as they used to do in the time of the king’s predecessors and also to cause merchants of his bailliwick to come there with victuals for the maintenance of the miners as they used to do. This last clause rather suggests that the mines had fallen somewhat

into disuse through the dissatisfaction and desertion of former miners and that one of the difficulties had been a lack of provisions. From this time on there was more continuity in working the mines,

as the miners in 1334 asked for and obtained a reissue of letters patent which had been given for their protection a hundred years earlier, and had only then been destroyed by the Scots in rebellion.2

In return for the liberties of the mines the King claimed a share of the profits or produce, or a regale or royalty, which was

defined in 1278 at a presentment to the Justices Itinerant at Alston,3 when it was found that the King was to receive the ninth dish of all

the ore dug, each from the ground. of the remaining a total of a little mined.

dish to hold as much ore as one man could lift In addition the King took the ‘fifteenth penny’ eight dishes of ore which was sold. This makes more than one-sixth of all the ore which was

1 Cal. P.R. 1232-47, 132. 2 Cal. P.R. 1334-38, 31. J. Hodgson. History of Northumberland (1820-1858) 3,

pt. 2, 46-47. 3 Cal. return for knew how depended

Documents relating to Scotland, 2, 41, from Assize Roll of 6-20 Ed. I. In this regale the king was to find at his own expense a man or ‘drivere’ who to separate silver from lead. The jury said that the value of the mine on the nature of the ore found.

98

The King’s Regale—Laws and Customs The liberties claimed by the miners were not explicitly stated, but a complaint in 1290 shows that among the rights which they claimed were those which authorised them to take and use wood from the forests.1 In Michaelmas Term of 1290, Patric of the Gille and twenty-six other miners in Alston were impleaded by Henry de Whitby and his wife Joan, for cutting down their trees in Alston by force of arms and taking them away to the value of £40. The miners said that they held the mine from the King and that it was the privilege of their mine to take wood, to whomsoever it belonged,

from the place which was nearest and most convenient to the silver vein. Further there was no limitation, as they could take as much as they pleased to roast and smelt the ores, and it was also lawful for them to take wood for building, burning and hedging. They were entitled to give wood to the agents of the mine as wages, and

the rich people of the mine could give wood, as much as they pleased, to the poor for their support. After the miners began to cut wood, the lords of the wood had no right to sell or give any away except for reasonable estovers. These rights had been held by the miners from time beyond the memory of man. Joan and Henry de Whitby admitted the miner’s right to take wood for roasting and smelting the ores, but complained that the

forty poundsworth was taken over and above this necessity. There is no record of the judgment of this complaint, but that the custom was old: was evidenced by the similar complaint made nearly a hundred and forty years earlier, when miners had destroyed trees in the forest of Allendale. In the middle of the next century a few more details can be found to fill in the picture of the liberties of the mine. Thomas de Seton and John Mowbray were commissioned to hold an inquiry and in May 1356 they reported2 that the miners of Aldenston formerly dwelt together in their own huts and while they did so and performed their work, they had the liberty of electing one of themselves to be coroner and bailiff called Kyngessergeant, who had criminal and civil jurisdiction in all matters concerning them and their servants. The present miners ought to enjoy this 1E. Coke, Institutes of the Laws of England (1642) 578. J. Hodgson. History of Northumberland (1820-58) 3, pt. 2, 46-48. 2 Cal. Documents relating to Scotland, 1108-1509, ed. by Bain, 295. Cal. Ingu. Misc.

3 (1937) 222. Parl. Reports, 1, 64. Cal. P.R. 1354-58, 459-60.

99

Lead Mining in the Pennines liberty so long as they dwell together and persue their calling rendering yearly 10 marks to the king at the exchequer of Carlisle but not if dispersed.

The essence of the liberties was that the miners dwelt together and were not dispersed — they were to be a contained communityseparate from the non-miners — and that the work in the mines was regularly carried on. The “bounds of the mine’ are referred to in another document of the same date, and it seems therefore that the

erant of the mine of Alston was not a grant or lease of any individual vein or shaft but of an area comparable to a manor, within which the miners had liberty to work, to make their dwellings and to enjoy their special privileges in their relation to law and taxation. A second inquisition was called for when queen Phillipa, through the bailiff of her liberty of Tynedale, made demands on the miners of Alston who worked in the King’s mine, for levies and taxes. Alan de Strother, her bailiff, was ordered to make restitution of

£20 which he had demanded of the miners.! The sheriff of Cumberland ‘had been charged in the twelfth year of Henry with ten

marks, the farm of the said mines, and so, year by year, in the time of that King, of Edward I the late King, and the present King until the twenty eighth year of his reign’. The grant to Nicholas son of Roger de Veteripont is then again recited and: it was decided that the said miners, to wit, all working in the mine and all others dwelling within the bounds appointed for getting ore and maintaining and finding men to work therein, should be discharged of the said subsidy ... and should enjoy all liberties hitherto enjoyed by them ... the miners should not have any benefit or immunity of their lands and goods outside the said bounds, and others who are not miners, though dwelling within the bounds shall not have that immunity. If Alan attempts anything against the miners or their liberty, contrary to the form of this order, the king will punish him.

The privileges are now by definition restricted to miners and those actually serving the miners and maintaining them, which group would probably include the victuallers who had been ordered to attend by an earlier mandate. The mines were now being regarded as mines royal, valued by

the King because of their silver content, and to secure the best 1 Cal. Cl. R. 1354-60, 381-82. Cal. Ingu. Misc. 3, 222. I0o

The King’s Regale—Laws and Customs output the King appointed his own refiner. This is stated in the presentation to Justices Itinerant in 1278 after the definition of the King’s ninth dish and fifteenth penny-the king at his own expense to provide a ‘drivere’ who knew how to separate silver from lead. From time to time letters of protection were issued to individuals who were sent to the mines either to work in them or to inspect them. In 1324 protection was granted for one year to Richard Champion and Thomas de Allemaigne appointed to dig, cleanse and examine the King’s mines in the counties of Cumberland and Westmorland.! Richard Champion had been sent six years earlier, with John le Balaunce, to view and to report upon alleged mines of silver and lead in Westmorland.2 In 1359 the Alston mines were held of the freemen by Teleman of Cologne, to whom letters of protection were granted.3 It would appear from these names that already the King was introducing metallurgists from Germany to deal with the problem of the separation of silver from lead. During the second half of the fourteenth century the mines of Alston were again neglected, but their lease was reviewed in 14144 and confirmed to William de Stapildon and his tenants at

will whose ancestors ‘time out of mind have paid and still pay 10 marks yearly at the exchequer of Carlisle ... notwithstanding that for fifty years and more it has ceased to profit them. ..’. The mine tenancy is reaffirmed at the same rent and the liberties

and immunities of the miners are restated. Two years later this grant was confirmed at an Inquest taken at Penrith the 6 June, 3 Hen. V, when the liberties were stated in some detail.> They say that the miners at the mine of Aldenstone, at'the time when it was in the hand of Edward III and his progenitors, had and all others have had time out of mind these liberties ... etc, viz: to elect

from themselves and the residents within the moor called Aldenstone a coroner and bailiff called ‘kyngessergeant’ and the miners have cognition of all pleas of felonies, tresspasses, injuries, misprisons and all other delinquencies and evil deeds and debts, detentions and other contracts and actions personal by them and their servants and others within the said moor, before the said coroner, and the miners before 1 2 3 4 5

Cal. Cal. Cal. Cal. Cal.

P.R. P.R. P.R. P.R. C.R.

1321-24, 1317-21, 1358-61, 1413-16, 1416-22,

414. 273. 83. Wallace, 109. 250-51. 57-58. IOI

Lead Mining in the Pennines the coroner have power of oyer and terminer touching all such felonies, tresspasses, injuries, misprisons and delinquencies, by bills at the suit of the party and indictments at the suit of the king and the coroners have power to hear and determine all quarrels of debts, accounts, detentions and other contracts and actions personal and the miners by their bailiff have all attachments and arrests touching the above and execu-~ tions of the same and in return of writs and all fines and amercements

of the said miners and residents, all issues adjudged and forfeited before the coroner all chattels called waif and stray and chattels of felons, outlaws and fugitives on the moor.

A grant in 1475 states that the grantee shall have power to appoint a steward to hold a court within the mines to hear and

determine all pleas except those of land, life and members.! This is the last specific notice of the operation of the liberties in this area, but the appointment of a barmaster was continued and his duties retain some of the earlier freedoms for the miners, although

frequently redressed in more modern form. The liberties and customs of mines and miners are known in far more detail from Derbyshire and were recorded before the end of the thirteenth century. Miners had claimed a traditional and ancient right to explore for mines or veins of ore and to work them wherever found, on private as well as on waste ground. This claim had been met by actions for trespass by the landowners until, after suffering much interference, the miners in 1287 appealed to

the King to hear their grievances and to restore their ancient liberties.2, The King commissioned Reynold de Leye and William

de Meynill to inquire by the oaths of good and lawful men of the county, concerning the liberties which the miners claimed to enjoy. A jury was called at Ashbourne

and on Saturday after

Trinity Sunday, 1288, it was decided that in the beginning when miners come prospecting in the field and have found a mine they shall come to the steward who is called the Berghmaster and ask of him two meers, if it be in a new field, and shall have ! Cal. P.R. 1467-77, 505-6. This also confirms to the lords of the soil the ninth part, and to the curate of the place the tenth part of ‘les ewres’ (the ores). Also it confirms the power to search and dig freely, to buy wood and underwood and coal for purging (smelting) the metals, and to take workmen and labourers. See also F. J. Moorhouse. Pre-Elizabethan mining law; with special reference to Alston Moor. Trans. Cumb. & West. Ant. & Arch. Soc. 42 (1942) 43-55. 2 Add. Mss. 6681, 385-86. Cal. P.R. 1485-94, 69, 70. 102

The King’s Regale—Laws and Customs one for their handiwork, and another by the miners’ law, and that each

meer contains 4 perches, and the opening of the mine shall be 7 feet wide, each perch to be reckoned 24 feet. And the king shall have the third meer next and the remaining meers shall be delivered by the Berghmaster to the workmen who first demand it, and in an old field to each workman demanding and working one meer. And of the mine in work of this kind in the fee of our lord the king, the lord king shall have for his royalty the thirteenth dish which is called the lot as they have hitherto used. But for these our lord and king shall find the miners free ingress and egress in carrying and conveying their ore to the king’s highway in such manner and way as they have used. As to the ore won the jurors say that the lord king shall have the right of buying it before all others if he will give as much as it could be sold for to another. Also they say that if the miner has received money of anyone beforehand for a sale made for a term, it shall be well allowed to the miner to

pay this same debt to the buyer without let of the Berghmaster so that the term may be saved to him without deceit and when the term is finished the king shall have the sale before the rest as is aforesaid, They say also that it is allowed to a miner to give, sell or assign to anyone he

will his mine, either whole or in part without licence from the master of the berghmot. They say that time out of mind they have used the aforesaid liberties throughout the whole fee of our lord the king in the Peak until now, except in a certain place called Mam Dale where all the buyers have been prohibited from buying ore for the four years last past by the authority of the Berghmaster. Further they say that as to their warrant ‘the miners have enjoyed the aforesaid liberties as of ancient custom. They say also that the pleas of the Berghmot ought to be held from three weeks to three weeks at the mine. Also they say that if a miner meet with any accidental death at the mine, he shall be buried as by view of the miners without view of the coroner. And if any be convicted of a small trespass he shall give 2d for his amercement and shall pay it the same day; but if not it shall be doubled from day to day till it comes to 5s 4d and if blood be shed at the mines he shall pay 5s 4d the same day but if not it shall be doubled daily till it reach 100s. And if anyone be convicted of a trespass done underground he shall pay for his amercement 5s 4d and shall make restitution to his fellow of the damage which he has sustained. The King accepted this account of the liberties which were

claimed on the basis of immemorial custom and not of any grant by charter, and they were continued to the miners through the

following centuries until the nineteenth, when they were reviewed 103

Lead Mining in the Pennines

and embodied in a revised and modernised form in an Act of Parliament.! The laws and liberties applied to the areas of the King’s field, that is the hundreds of High Peak and Low Peak, and

included some mines in Crich. The earliest series of customs set out in the form of separate and agreed laws is that of Mendip, where in the time of Edward IV a great debate arose in Mendip about the rights of the commoners and the miners, and the King sent down Lord Chocke, the chief justice of England.2 The said Lord Chocke sate upon a place of my Lord of Bathes called the fordge upon Mynedeepe where he commanded all commoners to appeare there and in especial the four Lords Royall of Meynedeepe ... with all the appearance to the number of ten thousand people. This great meeting after settling some problems of summer and

winter pasturage agreed upon the regulation of the mines. The old auncient custome of the occupacon of the Mynedries in and upon the Kings’ Maties fforest of Meyndeepe within his Maties County of Somsett being one of the foure Staples of England wch hath bene exercised used and continued through the said fforest from the time whereof man now living hath noe memory 1s as hereafter doth particularly ensue. ...

Then follow ten laws engraved upon the side of a map of the Mendip mines which was prepared between 1461 and 1485, but is not dated to any nearer date. As these laws have most of the

provisions that appear in the other areas, it will be well to state them.3 1. First That if any man whatsoever hee bee that doth intend to venter his life to bee a workman in the mynedery Occupacon hee must first of all require Lycence of the Lord of the Soyle where hee doth purpose to 1 The Derbyshire Mining Customs and Mineral Courts Act, 1852. 15 & 16 Vict. c. clxiii. T. Tapping. A Treatise on the Derbyshire Mining Customs and Mineral Court Act, 1852 (London 1854). 2 J. W. Gough. The Mines of Mendip (Oxford 1930), chap. 4 and Appendix. A version of the laws, undated, but believed to belong to the reign of Mary, is bound up with miscellaneous papers of Elizabeth, now in the Public Record Office. S.P.D. Eliz. 287, No. 97. The map with the laws is generally referred to as the Chewton map, and it is in the Waldegrave Estate Office, Chewton Mendip. 3 This is the version given by J. McMurtrie. Notes on the forest of Mendip. Trans. Inst. Min. Eng. 20 (1900-01) 533-534, 535-580.

104

The King’s Regale—Laws and Customs worke or in his absence of his officer as Lead Reve or Bailye and the Lord nother his Bayliffe or officer can deny him. 2. Item that after the first Lycence had the workmen shall never need to aske leave againe but to bee at his freewill to pitch within the said fforest and to breake ground where and in what place itt shall best like him to his behoofe and profitt using himself justlie and trulie. 3. Item that every man that doth begin his pitt or Groove shall have his hack throw teo wayes after the Oare; And note that hee that doth throwe the hack must stand in his said Groove to the gordle or wast And then noe man shall or may worke within the Compasse of his said hacks throw. 4. Item that when a workman hath landed any oare hee may carry the same to clensing and blowing to what minedrie hee shall please for the more speedy making of the same soe that hee doe pay the tenth thereof to the Lord of the soyle where itt was landed. 5. Item that if any Lord or his officer have once given Lycence to any man to build or sett upon any Hearth or washing house to wash and cleanse and blow theire oare hee who hath soe once leave shall for ever keepe itt sell itt or give itt to whome itt shall please him soe that he doe trulie and justlie pay the Lott Lead wch is the tenth pound that shall bee blowne att the same Hearth or Hearths And alsoe if hee doe keepe itt tenantable as the Craft doth require. 6. Item that if any man of the occupacon doe pick or steale any Lead or Lead oare to the value of xjii? the Lord or his officer may arrest all his lead and oare house or hearths wth all his Grooves and workes and keepe them as a forfeit to his owne use And shall take the person that soe hath offended and bring him where his house or worke and all his tooles and Instruments belonging to the same occupacon bee and put. him into his house or worke and set fire in all together about him and banish him from that occupacon before all the Myneders for ever. 7. Item that if ever that person doe pick or steale there any more hee shall bee tryed by the Comon law, for this Custome and law hath noe more to doe with him. 8. Item that every Lord of soyle or soyles ought to keepe two Mynedrie Courts by the yeare and to sweare twelve men or more of the same occupacon for the redress of all misdemeanours and wrongs touching the Mynedries. g. Item the. Lord or Lords may make three manner of Arrests (That 1s to say) the first is for strife betweene man and man for their workes under the earth. The second is for his owne dutye for Lead or oare wheresoever hee find itt within the said fforest, The third is upon felons. goods of the same occupacon wheresoever hee find itt wthin the same Hill.

105

Lead Mining in the Pennines 10 Item that if any man by the meanes of this doubtfull and dangerous occupacon doe by misfortune take his death as by falling the earth upon him by drowning by stifleign with fire or otherwise as in times past many have bene The workmen of this occupacon are bound to fetch the body out of the earth and bring him to Christian buriall att their owne proper Costs and Charge although hee bee threescore fathom under the earth as heretofore hath bene seene And the Coroner or any other officer att Jurye shall not have to doe with him nor them.

These laws were used and enforced in the Mendip field and by the early seventeenth century additions of both major and minor laws had been made until when they were printed in 1687, they num-

bered 106.1 This assertion of working life of the miner on accepted by the miners as ‘a claim, so that when in 1352, were taken to Hope,

County

the basic laws which governed the a King’s field seems to have been privilege they could and ought to miners, probably from Derbyshire, Flint, to open mines there, they

claimed their ‘articles of franchises, a copy of which they, the justices and the chamberlain, have sent to the council, who have

shown it to the prince. The prince (the Black Prince) assents to the articles and wishes the matter to be put in train.’2 In 1486 a summary set of customs was stated for use in the north and these will serve as a good summary of the general trend

of the laws. Appointment as the king’s commissioner of his mines in England and Wales of tin, lead, copper, gold and silver; Jasper Duke of Bedford; Thomas Archbishop of York; John Bishop of Worcester; Peter Bishop of Exeter; John Bishop of Ely; John Earl of Oxford; Henry Earl of Northumberland; Edward Earl of Devon; and others for 20 years from

Purification last.3 [Summary only] 1. may search and dig anywhere but not under houses or castles without licence of the lord of the soil. 2. they and their servants may take all wood brushwood and charcoal needed for separation, proving and purifying, and land and water carriage for the same at reasonable price to be agreed with possessors. 1 J. Collinson. The History and Antiquities of the County of Somerset (1791) 2, 117. 2 Black Prince’s Register III. Pal. of Chester, 1352, fo. 40, 67.

3

3 Cal. P.R. 1485-94, 69-70.

106

:

The King’s Regale—Laws and Customs 3. they may arrest necessary labourers and put them on the mines at reasonable wages. | 4. all persons engaged in the mines shall be free and quit of the plea of naifty and of all pleas and. plaints pertaining to the king’s court so they shall not answer before any justices or ministers touching any plea or plaint arising within the limits of the mines, pleas of land, life and limb excepted. 5. Shall not withdraw from the mines at the summons of any minister of the king except the keepers. 6. quit of all tallages, tolls, aids and other customs in towns, ports, fairs and markets within the said parts as regards their own goods. 7. the keepers shall hold all pleas between artificers and others and between them and foreigners touching all trespasses, plaints and contracts in places where they work and within the limits of the mine and shall do justice therein. 8. if they commit any offence for which they ought to be imprisoned, they are to be arrested by keepers and kept in the nearest prison until delivered by the law and custom of the realm. g. if any workman in the mines put himself upon the inquisition of the country in any matter not touching mine workers within the limits of the mine, half such inquisition shall be workers from the mines and the other half foreigners. 10. in any matter entirely touching themselves it shall consist of themselves without foreigners. 11. the commissioners have power to appoint a steward to hold a court in the king’s name from time to time in the mines touching all pleas and plaints except of land, life and limb and they shall have a seal for the use of the mines.

The closer definition of the customs and privileges of the mines occupied much of the fourteenth century and it emerged clearly

that in establishing a mining field the King granted to the miners concerned usufruct of the mines in return for continuous work and

the payment of a tax or proportion of the metal produced. Protection from interference by the barons or the demands of feudal service was extended to these communities, but this did not pre-

clude conscription by the King for transfer to another mining area. When the lead-silver ores of Combe Martin and Bere Alston in Devonshire came to the King’s notice, then miners were taken from Derbyshire to work in them, and rigorous action was taken against any who left the mines without due sanction.

107

Lead Mining tn the Pennines

The mines of Combe Martin and Bere Alston were very productive in the latter part of the thirteenth century, and in 1293 William de Wymondham

accounted for 270 lb of silver. In 1296,

in order to extend the work, miners were impressed from Derbyshire and Wales, a safe conduct having been issued 28 December | 1295 ‘until a week after the Purification, for Master Richard le

Myner, coming by the King’s commission and with other miners from Derbyshire to Devonshire to the king’.! Further groups of

miners were impressed from time to time, and in 1360 action was taken

against

some

who

had

returned

to Derbyshire

without

permission. 1360 June 5. To the Sheriff of Nottingham and Derby. Order to take Stephen Martin of Foulowe, William Lemyng of Longesdon, Simon Fithelere of Yolgreve, John de Burgh of Culvere, John Athelere of Yolgreve, John de Tor of Bradewelle, Thomas Caperoun of Lytton Sampson in the Folde of Haselbech, Henry Flesshewere of Moniassh, John Innocent of Hoclowe, William Thomasssone of Wardlowe, and Nicholas Orm of Tydeswelle, Wherever found within liberties and without, and bring them to the king’s castle of Nottingham, and there keep them safe in prison until they shall find security for returning to Devonshire and serving the king in his mines at his wages; as thesemen, who were chosen by the sheriff in those two counties at the king’s command and sent to Devonshire to work in the king’s mines there, and were set to work and abode some time at the king’s wages, have now left the works and returned to their own parts, whereby the works remain undone, as Henry de Brusele and his fellow masters of the said mines have testified.

Ten years later eight miners were taken from Yorkshire and six from Nottingham and Derby, and when Henry de Burton was

appointed in 1377 to make a wider search for gold and silver in Devon and Cornwall he was authorised to impress more miners to help in the search.3 It appears from all this that while in the first place the King offered privileges to attract miners, once having become a miner on the King’s field, a man was not entirely ‘free’ but might be subject to royal ‘direction’ against which there was no appeal. 1 Cal. P.R. 1292-1301, 179. 2 Cal. CLR. 1360-64, 37. 3 Cal. P.R. 1367-70, 476.

108

The King’s Regale—Laws and Customs During this long period of development on the ‘King’s field’ areas, both monastic and secular mining continued to be concerned in an increasing number of isolated mines not yet recognised as part of any defined field. The wide extent of mineral deposits over the north of England hinted at by this dispersion of individual mines created the suspicion that there were probably many mines either known and ‘concealed’ or being worked without regard to the King’s interest. Not much is known in detail about them and

many references are only incidental, e.g. when John de Eshton claimed much of the Honour of Skipton a mine in Appletreewick was mentioned, and it is stated that in 1280 he was granted in fee simple 2 acres of land which he was holding by assignment of the King’s steward in Barden wood in the forest of Skipton, for the support of his mill and lead mine of Appletreewick.! This mine

later came into the possession of Bolton Priory and was developed in subsequent centuries. This increasing interest led to a call for reports on wide areas, and the search was extended to parts of

Cumberland and Westmorland and as a result the King claimed three mines.2 1331 Order to the Sheriffs and all other bailiffs, ministers and others

of the counties of Cumberland and Westmorland to be intendant to Robert de Barton, whom the king has appointed during pleasure as keeper of a mine of silver and lead in the parts of Minerdale and Silverbek, co. Gumb: and Harcla, co. Westd; ... the king having by letters patent appointed Robert de la Forde and Richard Campioun to search the same at their own costs and to dig in the said parts.

In the same way a search had been made for three mines in the north of England reputed to be very rich in silver, Blanchland, Fletcheras and Keswick, and when confirmed these were leased by

the King, who appointed a refiner and smelter to secure the full benefit of the ores.3 In these and other claims we see the increasing claim of the

King to ‘mines royal’ in any part of the country, independent of the areas we have discussed as the ‘King’s field’. This claim to mines of silver and gold in any part of the realm, and the increasing accusations of the offence of ‘concealing a mine royal’ acted in 1 Cal. P.R. 1272-81, 405, 18 November 1280. 2 Cal. F.R. 4, 280. 3 Cal. P.R. 1467-77, 132; 1467-77, 505-06.

109

Lead Mining in the Pennines general as a deterrent to the development of new mines outside the areas of ancient liberties. It was not until the great Case of Mines between the Crown and the earl of Northumberland that the areas of the Crown’s direct interest were closely defined,! and that the ‘mineral liberties’ where mining was regulated by ancient laws and © customs were reduced to four — the Stannaries (tin) in Cornwall,

Mendip, Derbyshire, and Grassington in Wharfedale, Yorkshire. An investigation of the Laws and Customs of Grassington, however, leads to the conclusion that these are neither ancient nor original, but that they are borrowed from Derbyshire. The centre of the ‘Mineral Liberty’ is Grassington High Moor with the Earl

of Cumberland as lord of the soil. There is no certain evidence of early mining on the High Moor and any other in the manor of Grassington is limited to a single reference to the purchase of a parcel of ore from a Grassington man in 1456.2 Similarly, in the rest of the Dale which makes up the total Liberty, records of early mining are very scanty, the earliest authenticated records being seventeenth century. The manor of Grassington had not been Crown

land since

Domesday but had descended to the earl of Cumberland by the marriage of a Clifford heiress with the Plumpton who held it, and through her two daughters who shared the inheritance. One half had been sold to Henry, Earl of Cumberland, whose grandson in-

herited the other half by descent from the other sister, thus reuniting the manor. Thus the area had no claim either to being

an ancient King’s field nor to being an ancient mining centre. In 1603 the earl of Cumberland brought miners from Derbyshire to open up mines, and it was they who were responsible for developing the mines on Grassington Moor,? and it was among the second

generation of these miners, with the local men who had joined them, that the demand for the setting down of laws and ancient

customs, arose. It is probable that the Derbyshire miners did in fact work by memory to the laws under which they had learned their craft, and they felt the need for these laws when questions of 1'W. G. Collingwood. Elizabethan Keswick (Cumb. & West. Ant. & Arch. Soc, Tract Series, 8) (Kendal 1912) 22-25. 2 Mems. Fount. 3, 153. 3'T.D. Whitaker. History and Antiquities of the Deanery of Craven (London 1812)

478. IIo

The King’s Regale—Laws and Customs procedure or dispute arose. The Earl of Cumberland, probably through his agents, realised the advantages of such customs of the

mines as making the maintenance of order and discipline easier in the mining field, and so accepted the request. The result of this was a meeting of miners in May 1642 at which twenty laws were framed.! This 19th of May 1642 Wee Whose Names ar Under Written Doe Find Henrie Earle of Comberland to bee Chief lord of the Manner and Myns of and with in the lordsheep of Grissington: and Mr Pulman to bee barmaister within the afforsaid Myns and Gorg Smeth to be Debitie Barmaister. 1 Ytem wee set Doune that the Myners shall have but 21 yeards to His Maier and Further if any myner will Make their venter not to wronge my lord. nor any that is in possessyon and otherwys adioyning to bee free and further upon their ferst ure Findeng to have their ground messurd by the barmaister and hes to have a desh of the ferst ure that is gotten and the ferst finder of any new vaine to have 2 mairs of length set forth by the barmaister. 2 Ytem we set Downe that Every Workeman shall follow His warke after they have begune according to Reight and Custom whearby the worke may goe forward and not the worke stayed by any partner without good Cause and to the Judgment of workemen. 3 Ytem Wee set Down that noe Myner shall sue one another Nether for Dept nor trispas Which may faull among them selves concerning the Myner but in the barmot Court upon paine of everie such Default xx s. 4 Ytem Wee set Downe that it shall bee lawfull for any man to sell Hees Worke to any man without an Danger to ether them that byeth or heem that selleth being freed from the barmaister and according to law and then to acquent the bar Maister therwith. 5 Ytem Wee set Downe that Noe Man Conseall any ure lead or Wood Whear by to Wrong the lord or the workes or Workemen in paine of everie such Default xx s. 6 Ytem We set Doune that the barmaister shall keep true and lawfull weights at the melne and not to alter them to wrong the myners With out Consent of this Jurie in paine of ever such Default xx s till next court. 1 This is known only from a manuscript copy among the family papers of Major J. Yorke, Halton Place, Hellifield, Yorkshire. My attention was drawn to it and a transcript supplied to me (A.R.) by Mr H. A. Taylor, then archivist at Leeds Central Library, to whom, and to Mrs Yorke, I am greatly indebted. Yorke MSS. 192. III

Lead Mining in the Pennines 7 Ytem Wee set Doune that Noe Man shall take any other Mens toules from his work without the owners lysence in paine of everie tyme soe to take them ij s i114 d. 8 Ytem We set Downe that Noe Man shall absent heem self from his worke to the lose and Hendrans of his partners but shall com with in thre weeke tyme and make his account and paie his Chargees for his absence or else forfeet his part to his partners. g Ytem Wee set Doune that Noe Man nor Woman shall puchas in any Mans ground With out leave of the owners of that worke in paine of everie such Defaultx s and to be put out of those lyberties.

10 Ytem We set Doune that Noe parson Man nor Woman shall take away any tymber from any Workes or uncover their workes Whear by mens goods may be lost in paine of such Defalt xi s. 11 Ytem We set Doune that Noe Man shall Conseall any ure or other thing with in the ground to the heendrance of the next taker and if any man Deny his next Nebor for going in to his worke the Barmaister or hes Debitie shall appoynt 2 or 4 of the Jurie to goe in and if they Doe Deny them they shall upon everie Deniall forfet to the lord 3s 4d and they that is to goe to bee paid by the barmaister for their pains out of the said Fynes. 12 Ytem Wee set Downe that if any man wrong his neighbor within the ground they shall be punesht accordinge to the law provided in that Cace. 13 Ytem We set Doune that noe Man shall stop the water nor set the watter upon his nebor to his lose and Heendrance or let their Dams goe provided for their use of budling or washing their ure for everie such Default 6s 8d. 14 Ytem Wee who ar workemen within the lords liberti is to have by a grant from his honer to have tymber at 4d a Dozen being at Cost to make it our selves. 15 Ytem Wee ar to have as a grant from my lord for Coe tymber Corfwood peeckshafts budlebords Coe Dars and stoprice washing fats for the mor paying for working theis our selves 16 Ytem Wee set Dowen that thier shall be at ether meelne a good washing fat provided at my lords Charge and a gallan to feell the same withall in paine of everie Default is. 4d. 17 Ytem We set Doune that every Man shall have his own wasts to dris up at his owen pleasure not wronging my lord. 18 Ytem Wee set Down that when their is a new workestone laid it shall have the pan fild at my lords Charg with lead according to former costom and everie man to leave it as full as he findes it in paine of 6s 8d.

The King’s Regale—Laws and Customs 19 Ytem Wee set Doune that the smelters shall be Chosen one by the Consent of the barmaister and the other by the Jurie. 20 Ytem Wee set Doune that for this Jurie being in paneld and sworn that if it may appear that any of them shall Revaill the agrement mad at this tym shall for everie such Defalt pay x s. Defaltes for not appearing at this barmot Cort Jarves Gaskin Henrie prockter John Hynd Jams Hynd Homfra Ibotson

6d 2d pardoned

We find philep Marshill guiltie to That fine Whech former Jurers have formerly set Doune Which is 4os. fortie shillin [on dorso]

Richard Roberts

John Canuer

Thomas Dancer

William Ibotson

John Allison

Henrie Mangham

Samwell Robenson Willim Eadie

Robert Robinson Rouland Wood

John houlgat

Gorg Mangham

Thomas humfra

Francis Hollis

Roger Wild

This document has most of its laws in common, though with different: wording and arrangement, with those of Derbyshire. It also shows that the jury had met previously to this particular occasion and levied a fine, so that it 1s likely that efforts had been

made to remember the laws and customs with greater accuracy and to set them down in writing for future guidance. Some of the laws throw a light on methods of working, particularly that the miners were using the buddle for washing ore and had the right to take timber to make their buddles and vats (fats). They also claimed

timber for making their coes, the little sheds or buildings made upon the mines, near to or over the shaft, in which to keep tools and ore and to serve for changing their clothes when going into and out of the mine. Corfe wood is needed to make the buckets and other containers for use on and in the mine, and stoprice is boards and timber used in the shaft to hold back soft or unsafe ground. The regulation that the lord should fill the pan with lead when a new workstone is put into the ore hearth and that miners when 8

113

Lead Mining in the Pennines

smelting should leave it full is in line with everyday practice at the ore hearth smelting. Mr Pulman would be the lord’s barmaster, and Gorg Smeth would be the miners’ man. These laws and customs seem to have been accepted and used, for in 1737 a special Barmoot Court says that the: ‘Laws and Customs have Time out of Mind prevailed and been used, within the said Liberty .. .’, and to prevent any inconvenience, the grand jury then proceed to set down a full set of thirty-three.1 The chief provisions which all the laws have in common seem to be first, the liberty given to miners to prospect and search for ores throughout the field, and having found a mine to be given of right a section of it to work. The letting of ‘meers’ along the run of the vein is done by the barmaster, the most important official of the mines, who keeps records and weighs all the ore produced, collects the ‘lot’ for the lord of the soil, and summons the regular barmoot courts. He is to walk the field every week, check that the mines are being worked and that mining is being done in accord-

ance with the customs and in workmanlike manner. The provision of timber is placed upon the lord of the field and the lord is also to provide the means of smelting the ore. Ingress and egress to the various mines is guaranteed and the barmoot court deals with matters of debt, theft and trespass among the miners. In return for

all this the lord takes his ‘lot’, a regular proportion of the ore produced, which varies between one place and another, often being the ninth dish, but in some places, High Peak for instance,

being much less, only the thirteenth dish. The dish is defined as the amount of ore which a miner can lift from the ground, but in the King’s field of Wirksworth it was given a precise definition in 1513 when a standard dish of brass was made for the Wapontake. The dish is rectangular with the internal dimensions — top, 21°5 in x 5-3 in, the bottom 20-7 inx 5-2 in and the depth 4:26 in. It is calculated to contain 14 pints dry measure, but actually its volume is 14 pints and one twenty-first part of a pint.2 1 Rava Avis in Terris: or, The Laws and Customs of the Lead Mines, Within the Mineral Liberty of Gressington cum Membris, and all other Mineral Liberties of the Right Hon. Richard Earl of Burlington, in the West-Riding of the County of York, by Solomon Bean, Barr-master of the said Liberty. Leeds: printed by James Lister; 1737: 2 Mander. Frontispiece, with an unnumbered page, A description of the miners’ and brenners’ standard dish, 23.

114

The King’s Regale—Laws and Customs

The dish has inscriptions on the two long sides and these state exactly what it is and when made. This Dishe was made the iii day of Octobr the mii yere of the Reign of Kyng henry the vii before George Erle of Shrowesbury steward of ye kyngs most honourable household. and also steward of all the honour of Tutbury by the assent and consent as well of all the Mynours as of all The Brenners within and adjoining the lordship of Wyrkesworth percell of the said honour. This Dishe to Remayne in the Moot Hall at Wyrkysworth hangyng by a cheyne So as the Merchantes or mynours may have resort to ye same at all tymes to make the trw measure after the same.

The miners kept a wooden dish for their own use, and twice a year this was brought to the Moot Hall and tested against the standard.

The standard was filled with rape seed which was then poured into the wooden dish. If the dish failed to hold it or was of greater

capacity, a carpenter in attendance either scooped out or reduced the sides until the measure was true. The usefulness of the laws and customs is perhaps best indicated by the seventeenth-century rush to secure printed copies, the first of which was prepared by Edward Manlove, steward of the Barmoot Court, who wrote in verse the Liberties and Customs of the Mines

within

the

Wapontake

of Wirksworth.

In

1687

Thomas

Houghton published his work Rara Avis in Terris or the Compleat Muer, in the introduction to which he says: ‘Honest Countrymen, knowing there is nothing extant among you concerning your Liberties, Laws and Customs, save only some few Written Copies

which Thousands of miners and Mantainers of Mines have not ... was the cause I published this book.’ In this he prints fiftynine articles as determined at the Great Court Barmoot held at Wirksworth to October 1665. This went through a second edition.

In 1730 Steer published another account of the laws under the title The Compleat Mineral Laws of Derbyshire. These were not

the only publications, so that in the eighteenth century the mineral laws and customs must have been as well known as at any time in their history. Farey in his report of 1811 suggests that in many items the laws would be improved by revision, and this revision was eventually carried through in the mid-nineteenth century.

I15

Chapter 6

Opening of the Technical Age The seventeenth century was for the metallurgical world a time of intense experiment. The crisis in timber supplies leading to the restrictive Acts against the use of large timber for charcoal, and against the location of furnaces near the coast and principal waterways so as to reserve timber for the navy, led to a large number of experiments in search of a way of substituting coal for charcoal, particularly in making iron. The prime difficulty here was that most coal contained materials like sulphur, which were deleterious to the iron and could be absorbed by molten iron and so spoil its quality. A search was therefore concentrated on a new type of furnace in which the ores need not come into contact with

the fuel used. Such a furnace would be of a reverberatory type, where the flames and heat from burning fuel were reflected on to the ore or metal in a second chamber. The invention of such a furnace is known to have taken place in the seventeenth century, but the early forms which might qualify for the name were not satisfactory, and it was not until the end of the century that Dr Edward Wright invented and perfected the true reverberatory furnace in which lead was successfully smelted.1 In 1613 John

Rovenson published A Treatise of Metallica in which he described a form of reverberatory furnace, but there is no evidence that he

ever made one. Other inventions were claimed, but again there 1s no evidence of any furnace being used with success. In 1678 George, Viscount Grandison obtained a patent for an invention ‘to melt and refine lead ore in close or reverberated furnaces with pit-coal’, and in 1686 he set up a lead works near Bristol. 1 Rhys Jenkins. The reverberatory furnace with coal fuel. T.N.S. 14 (1933-34) 67-81.

116

Opening of the Technical Age In 1692 the most decisive step was taken in the formation of a company which, with some modifications, was to contribute much to lead mining and smelting for the next two hundred years.! Proceedings upon the petition of Constantine Vernatty, Thomas Addison, and John Nix, Esqrs. John Moore and George Moore, of London, Merchants, Shows that they have together with several others,

at the expense of several thousand pounds, brought to perfection a very useful art or invention of smelting down lead ore, with pit and sea coal, and making the same into good and merchantable sheet lead, shot, bullets and other lead, which has not so effectively been put into practice by any persons before. That in regard it requires a considerable stock for the improvement and carrying on the said undertaking, which cannot easily be raised, but by a joint stock and incorporation under the Great Seal, they pray her Majesty to incorporate them and such others as they shall nominate by the name of The Governor and Company of Lead Miners in England and Wales. Referred to the Attorney or Solicitor General.

During the progress of this petition the objects were more clearly expressed and two companies were sought. On 4 October 1692, William and Mary granted to the original petitioner, Constantine Vernatty, a charter incorporating The Governor and Company for Smelting Down Lead with Pittcoale and Seacole. ‘This became known as the London Lead Company, and after 1704 was also frequently known under the name The Quaker Lead Company, and was responsible for much of the development of lead mining and smelting in North Wales, Derbyshire, Alston Moor and many

other areas. Grandison’s lead works near Bristol had come into the possession of Talbot Clerke, and at a meeting of the Governor and Company, 19 October 1692, it is minuted?: This board being aquainted that there were neere Bristol some very convenient Lead Workes all ready built fitt for the Immediate smelting downe of Lead with all things proper and belonging thereto and that they were in the Possession of Talbot Clerke Esq. (on whose art in smelting downe lead with Pittcoale and Seacoale this Companys Pattent of Incorporation is grounded and who hath subscribed and is interested for himself and his friends 500 shares) doe therefore resolve to buy and 1 Cal. S.P.D, 1691-2, 178. 2 L.L.C.M. 1, 19 October 1962.

117

Lead Mining in the Pennines purchase the said workes and having Treated with the said Talbot Clerke esq. doe this day agree ... to paye him the Summe of nine thousand pounds in full for the said workes and art by giving him credit for the said nine thousand pounds in the Companys bookes which credit he this day agreed to accept of in full satisfaction.

These works at Bristol were set at work, but they produced many difficulties usually reported to the Court of the Company as due to intractable ores, but it is clear that whatever the process

of the patent, it was not working as expected, and in March 1695 the works were closed down and sold, and nothing put in their place. About 1690 Dr Edward Wright, a physician and metallurgist, had experimented with and perfected a true reverberatory

furnace and had succeeded in smelting lead ores with coal, and in refining the lead and extracting silver. In 1692 he had secured from the Trustees the charter of the Royal Mines Copper, which had originally been granted to the miners of copper at Keswick, and had revived the interest of the company in copper mines in Cumberland (Carrock Fell) and in Wales. In the north a company, the Ryton Company, had been established, with Wright as a member, to smelt lead ores from Alston Moor at Ryton-on-Tyne, and its smelting works was served by true reverberatory furnaces, the mill having three smelting furnaces, one reducing furnace, two refining furnaces and one slag hearth. Dr Wright and most of his partners at Ryton were Quakers and so, by their refusal to take oaths, they had been unable to join in the Governor and Company

at Bristol. The other concern in which Dr Wright was the leading member was the Royal Mines Copper, and they had established themselves in North Wales, smelted some lead and in 1703 built a

new smelting mill at Gadlis, near Flint. This had three reverberatory furnaces, slag hearth, refining furnaces, etc., and was said to be

in excellent order. It was smelting ores from several mines in the Halkyn area. Several of the stockholders at Ryton were also members of the Welsh Company and together they wished to get hold of the charter of the Governor and Company, the London Lead Company, which was stopping their progress as a smelting company. The Solicitor-General was asked for a ruling on the position 1 L.L.M. Co. A detailed study of the history of the Gadlis smelt mills is in progress, of which Part I has been printed. M. Bevan-Evans. Gadlys and Flintshire Lead Mining in the eighteenth century. Journ. Flintshire Hist. Soc. 18 (1960) 75-130.

118

Opening of the Technical Age of Quakers, and when they were allowed to make Affirmation instead of taking the oath, a number of them were able to join the Governor and Company, and by agreement the few original shareholders still left sold or transferred their stock to the Quakers, who

thus became the majority holding. It was then possible to arrange the transfer of Ryton and Welsh stock to the new company, and in 1704 the new Governor and Company for smelting down lead

with pit coal and sea coal came into being. This, the new Quaker Lead Company, now had mines in North Wales and Alston Moor,

and smelt mills at Gadlis and Ryton.1 One of Dr Wright’s investigations had been into the refining of lead and the extraction of silver by cupellation on bone ash tests. He had improved the methods of preparing bone ash and spent some time in devising better methods of reducing the test, or bone ash bed, on which cupellation had taken place and into which some of the litharge was absorbed. By washing and crushing black slags and mixing them with test-bed material, the two were very successfully smelted, and the whole process was such a success that they

were able to produce both silver of more than mint standard, and fine quality merchantable lead. It is reported in January 1705/6: By Act of I William and Mary they were bound to bring to the Mint all the silver extracted and her Majesty and her predecessors had granted a mark of distinction to be stamped on the coin made therefrom. In five months the petitioners had brought eight bars of silver, 50 or 60 Ibs. weight each, and were bringing a new bar every three weeks. A warrant was

asked

for the Master

and

worker

to coin the same,

with

the

impression of which they had affixed a draft.? The output of silver from veins of high silver content which they were fortunate to find in the South Tyne, near Clargill Head, and some other veins, is some indication of the tremendous activity of

the new Company. Between 1704 and 1745 they produced just over 1 million ounces of pure silver, and at a later period, 1830-70,

over 24 million ounces. The ‘device’ allowed on all coins stamped from their silver was seen on the reverse of the coin — two roses and two Prince of Wales feathers, set at the ends of two diagonals,

and indicating their principal refineries in Wales (Gadlis) and 1 A. Raistrick. Two Centuries of Industrial Welfare 2 Cal. Tr. B.P. 97, No. 5, Jan. 1705/6.

11g

neon 1938) 105.

Lead Mining in the Pennines England (Ryton). Coins with this device, generally known to the dealers as ‘Roses and Plumes’, were minted from 1705 to 1737, when new arrangements for sale of their silver were made.! In 1706 the Governor and three assistants, S. Davies, Urban Hall, Edward Wright and John Haddon, who were in fact the

general managers, and who toured all the company properties regularly, reported on a visit to Ryton: Ryton Cupola — well contrived and built... Alston Moor -—. . . all the way on horseback, the ways being inaccessible for a coach ... and on the way saw Whitfield Mill, a place much used for smelting lead in hearths by help of water (power). Thos. Pattinson (chief smelter at Ryton) suggests might be convenient for smelting slags. Rent £7 or £8 per ann. £ sd Five bings of ore may yield about 1 fodder of lead may be carried to Whitfield for

O13

the fodder of lead carried to Blaydon or Ryton

e194

Five bings ore carried to Ryton So there will be saved in carrying it to Whftd The coals may be dearer at Whitfield than at Ryton for smelting so much ore So that a fodder of lead may be worked cheaper at Whitfield than at Ryton by

4

6 I 15 o 8

8 0 4

oO I

4

7

©

0

so we think it worth further consideration.

The stream is large and constant; room enough for extensions and would be encouraged by Esq. Whitfield, the landlord. Certainty of coals must be enquired into. Assured there would be no shortage.

After a visit to several mines in the South Tyne and Nent valleys they remark: Tis to be remarked that in this country tis the most troublesome and dangerous riding (perhaps) of any part of England being extremely hilly, stony and boggy. There is no travelling but with a guide, nor then, but in danger of Horse and Man. 1 A. Raistrick. Two Centuries of Industrial Welfare (London 1938) 1ooff. G. C. Brooke. The coinage with roses and plumes. Numismatic Chronicles, 5th ser. 14 (1934) 51-56. T20

Opening of the Technical Age In spite of this melancholy report on transport, they took the lease of Whitfield Mull and it remained in operation for over 100 years.! The Whitfield Mill was overhauled and repaired and a satisfactory small coalfield at Coanwood, within about 6 miles, was linked with it. When Whitfield was in full production the Ryton Mill was sold to the Blackett family and was kept in work by them for another century and a half. In 1708 the mines at Shildon and Blanchland in the head of the Derwent (tributary of the Tyne)

valley, which had proved to be rich in the fifteenth century, were leased. In 1710 a new mill was built to smelt these ores and the

duty ores which were purchased from many small mines round about; this was the Acton Mill, using ore hearths at first for both

smelting and refining, but later replaced by reverberatory furnaces which remained in operation until 1808. With the experience of their mills in Derbyshire and Wales the Company had confirmed all their expectations of the reverberatory furnace, and throughout the rest of their activity, nearly 150 years, it remained their general smelting and refining furnace. The. reverberatory furnace differs in every way from the ore hearth, being a horizontal furnace in which a fire of coals is in a separate fire box and only the flames and hot air and gases are drawn over a low fire bridge to bear upon the ore in the bed of the furnace. The draught is created by a tall chimney without the help ofibellows, and so the location of this type of furnace is not dependent upon a large stream of water for power. In a wellequipped mill the smelting and refining are done in reverberatory furnaces, the slag is smelted in a slag hearth (a modified ore hearth), and the litharge from the refining is reduced in a reducing hearth. For the slag hearth and reducing hearth some water power is needed as these are bellows blown furnaces. The reverberatory

furnace was soon used for reducing and very soon replaced the reducing hearth in nearly all mills. | The furnace has two main parts, the fire box and the furnace bed. The fire box at one end is in fact a large coal-burning grate, the flames and heat from which are constrained to pass over a low brick wall, the fire bridge. The furnace bed is a low chamber, not quite rectangular, about 10 ft long and from to ft wide at the fire 1L.L.C.M. 3 July 1706. Report by S. Davis, Urban Hall, ed. Wright and John

Haddon, on Company’s mines and works. 121

|

Lead Mining in the Pennines

bridge end to about 8 ft 6 in wide at the other end; the two ends are not straight, but shaped to a slight curve, and furnace men have always been prone to have very strongly held views about the

actual shaping of the end by the fire bridge. The bed is concave, and is higher at the back than the front, and in front comes down to a. lowest point near the middle of the front wall. There are three small doors each side, through which pokers can be worked to stir the contents. The roof is not more than 19 in high at the fire bridge and slopes steadily down to 13 in at the other end, and 1s arched in a flat arch, back to front. There is a hopper and feeding hole near the middle of the front. The furnace bottom of brick 1s prepared by being covered with broken grey slag, and the fire

brought to a temperature which turns it pasty, so that it can be spread and moulded over the whole floor, with the pokers, making

a floor about 6in to 121n thick. The charge of the furnace 1s generally about 21 cwt of ore, spread evenly when the furnace 1s barely red hot. At this temperature it is turned and stirred for 2 hr with the doors partly open to give access to air, and so to calcine the ore. The temperature, regulated by the chimney draught and a damper, is raised to bring the charge to a semiliquid condition when it is pushed up to the higher part of the bed near the fire bridge and melted quickly. The molten lead then runs down to the lowest spot where there is a tapping hole, and is caught in a lead kettle or sumpter pot, from which it can be ladled into moulds. The slag is stiffened with slaked lime and can be raked out from the middle door at the back. The whole process takes 5 hr and two processings make a shift of work. Two men and a labourer are employed, and the 21 cwt ore generally need between 12 and 16 cwt of coal. There is no break between tapping one melt and filling and starting the next, so that the furnace is virtually continuous. When refining the lead for the extraction of silver, a ‘test’ was made consisting of an oval ring of broad iron strip with a cross

pattern of strips across the bottom, the whole about 4 ft 24 ft and 44 in deep. It is filled with bone ash, pounded in and shaped with a hollow top scooped out after the whole has been pounded solid and is placed in the furnace bed. Lead is poured into the test, molten so as not to chill the test at first, then the furnace is brought to full heat. The temperature and air are so regulated that I22

Opening of the Technical Age the lead oxidises to litharge but the silver is unchanged. The litharge flows away and is collected at the tap hole of the furnace,

and fresh lead is continuously added, now in the form of pigs, and the process can continue until the unaffected molten silver fills most of the test. When cold this is lifted out as a cake, and is then

recast into ingots. The test bottom absorbs a good deal of litharge and this is resmelted with black slag to recover the lead. The litharge can be sold to the paint makers, or reduced for recovery

of the lead. The London Lead Company managed their furnaces so well that the total loss of lead in the refining and reducing of litharge was very small. In 1720 the London Lead Company, with their mines and mills in Wales and Northumberland well established, looked for more

areas to develop, and through connections with some local families turned

their

attention

to

Derbyshire.

Their

agent,

Anthony

Barker, had already tried several Derbyshire ores at the Gadlis smelt mill and liked them, and the following report was made 13 September 1720!: George Graves haveing a Brother who receives the Dues for the Duke of Rutland of most of the Mines of Derbyshire there, and who knows the most valuable Works there and the Customs and Manner of Taking

the Ground, has given him Orders to take at Three several Places 100 Meers at each Place at the Forefields of good old Works and enter them in the Barr-Masters books which give sufficient Title and will cost but 12d. per meer entering.

Graves was given fifty guineas for doing this. The ‘meer’ was in Derbyshire, 29 yd length along the vein and it included the ‘quarter cord’, a distance of 7-8 yd along each side, on which ground the miner could place his spoil, put up his buildings, and carry out ore dressing and other work of the mine. In 1721 three members of the Court of the Company made a report on the Derbyshire mines and gave a wealth of detail of shafts and of trials made and making.

The original leases along three veins had been extended and new ones added so that a dozen veins are reported to be in work. The average depth of the shafts is about 30 fathoms (180 ft), and the quantity of water met in these deeper workings is urged as reason for ‘bringing up a sough’, i.e. driving a drainage level from a low point on the river side. In 1722 the mines are listed: 1 L.L.C.M. 5. 123

Lead Mining in the Pennines Longtor Old Vein, E-W, 21 meres. Longtor Gate Vein, NW-SE, 16 meres. Land Vein, N-S, 18 meres. Delfe Vein, N—S, 18 meres.

Horse Hay Vein, N-S, 24 meres. Accow Stool Vein, 10 meres.

Barton Stool Vein, 8 meres and crosses Delfe Vein. Clark Old Vein, NW-SE, 24 meres.

Sellory Langtor Vein, 36 meres. Longtor Steele Vein, N-S, 12 meres. Taken in Sept. 1720 by George Greaves. Stand unwrought by reason of great cost of bringing up a Sough which is now in constant workmanship and will unwater all these veins at their deepest Soles which have stood in water of several fathoms for many years now.

By September 1723 the Sough had advanced 100 fathoms and was going forward and ten veins were producing ore, the ore being

sold to neighbouring smelters or sent to Gadlis. In 1734 the Company

decided to have their own mill and for this purpose

leased the Bower’s Mill in Ashover for twenty-one years and later renewed the lease for fifteen years and then for twenty-one, but

surrendered the mill in 1778. The Company took out the ore hearths and substituted reverberatory furnaces throughout, and this became one of the most efficient mills in the county. It was

Bowers’ Mill of which Farey wrote!: ‘The Cupolas or low-arched Reverberatory Furnaces, now exclusively used for the smelting of Lead-ore in Derbyshire, were introduced from Wales by a company of Quakers, about the year 1747, the first of which was

erected at Kelstedge, in Ashover.” He follows this statement with a list of twenty other smelt mills with reverberatory furnaces. The London Lead Company continued to expand and introduced the reverberatory furnace into Yorkshire when, in 1733,

they purchased from Hugh Marriott his mines in the manor of Grinton, Swaledale, which were in the large groups of Whitaside, Harkerside and Grinton Moor, with a smelt mill.2 Following the general pattern, they rebuilt the mill and fitted it with reverberatory furnaces, then added other mine leases in quick succession, first those in Wensleydale which had belonged to Earl Lennox, in the old forest of Wensleydale, then those belonging to Philip Lord 1 Farey. 385.

2 L.L.C.M. 7, 31 August 1733.

124

SMELTING JUN WULDDLELON

LOUSE, DAILIE.

JD) iG RIB SBTURGE.

Opening of the Technical Age Wharton within the manors of Muker,and Healaugh in Swaledale. Most other mines in Swaledale retained the ore hearth for their mills, but two mills at Marrick, the Low and High Mill, and Beldi

Mill, followed the Grinton example and installed reverberatories, and at a later date, the New Mill near Langthwaite in Arkengarthdale, about 1800 was fitted with six reverberatories.

The ‘Cupola’ or new mill at Grassington Moor was built in 1750 with ore hearths, but before the end of the century changed

over to reverberatory smelting, and remained as the principal mill of the area until near the end of the nineteenth century.! The

higher efficiency of the reverberatory furnace would lead one to expect that it might replace the ore hearth, but this in fact did not occur. In all fields the reverberatory remained in a minority, except in Derbyshire, where according to Farey all the smelters turned over to it. In all other areas the ore hearth continued to be used both singly and in groups, possibly because of the abundant water power nearly everywhere available. However, a test made in the early nineteenth century might be relevant here. One factor to be kept in mind was the possibility of having the ore hearth in a small mill, near the mines, using peat as its fuel, so

abundant on most of our moors. This reduced the cost of transporting the larger bulk of ore before smelting, while a reverberatory furnace with its use of coal, could

have very heavy

transport charges for fuel, if placed in a too out of the way place. The Duke of Devonshire had the ‘Cupola’, a smelt mill with reverberatories, at Grassington Moor, and among other mills the Buckden High Mill, 10 miles further up Wharfedale, and it was decided to run a test on two parcels of identical ore to compare the costs. The trials were made by the duke’s smelters as follows: 1814 Sept. 5th. Then weighed 20 tun of Buckden Gavel Ore at Buckden by 112 lbs. to the cwt. Ten Tun of it was Smelted at the Birks Mill at Buckden and the other Ten Tun at the Cupola at Grassington in order to try the Experiment whether the Birks Mill or the Cupola made the better Produce in Lead and also the Expence of Smelting and Carriage of the Ore from the Mine to each place and the Lead to Skipton from each place. 1 A. Raistrick. Ore-hearth lead smelting in the 17th and 18th centuries. Proc. U.D.P.S. 10 (1950) 529-540.

125

Lead Mining in the Pennines From Ten Tun of Ore by 112 ]bs to the Cwt made in Lead 6 Tun 11 pigs. This ore did not weigh out it was 2 cwts & 1 qr short weight. aS. Adl Expence of Carrg. of Ten Tun of Ore from the Buckden Gavl Mine to the Birks Mill 13s. per Tun in Lead 4.6.4 Expence of smelting and Knocking Slags per ton in lead 12s.

a 19°

Expence of fuel per ton in Lead 11s. Carr. 6 ton 11 pigs of Lead from Birks Millto Sk: 18s p.tn. Expence of Liquor to the Smelters 1 s.p. day for 10 days One man dressing the Slaggs 2 days @ 3s. p.

312 of 5 17 1 IO Oo 6 0

7

IS) QTE This is the whole cost of smelting the Ten Ton of Ore at Birks Mill. The produce of Lead was 6 tons 11 pigs. Jos. Mason attended the whole of the Smelt. 31st Sept.

1814. The Produce as follows from Ten Tun

of Ore by

112 lbs. to the cwt. made 6 Ton 13 piggs of Lead. N.B. This ore weighed out short weight 3 cwts 2 qurs. the above 6 Ton 13 piggs was 252 lbs over. Expence of the carriage of the Ore from Buckden Gavle {£ s d to the Cupola is £1 gs od in Lead 9 12 II Expence of smelting 11 shifts @ 13s. per 74 Carr: of 6 Ton 13 pigs of Lead from the Cupola to Skipton @ ios p. ton 3 6 6 a

2S

This is the whole expense in smelting Ten Tun of Ore at Cupola. Produce in Lead 6 Ton 13 pigs which is 2 pigs in favour of the Cupola. Thomas Wiseman attended the whole of this Smelt at the Cupola.

The ore hearth in this test proved to be slightly the cheaper even though it appears from the account that its slags had to be dressed and resmelted in the hearth, but this was not done in the reverbera-

tory. The advantages of the ore hearth seem to be that it could use any fuel, peat, dry wood, coal and cinders, or mixed fuels in which peat took the foremost part. The operation could be started and under way in a very short time, lead production starting soon after the fire was lit and the bellows applied. Temperatures were lower than needed in the reverberatory furnace, and a shorter chimney 126

Opening of the Technical Age and cheaper fuel were quite satisfactory. A small quantity could be worked through at any time, so that the ore hearth was ideal for small partnerships, enabling them to smelt parcels of ore near their mines, saving considerable expense in carriage and in the storage that would be needed for parcels worth sending to the

central mill. The smelted lead was divided at the mill into dues ranging from a fifth to a ninth and the ‘duty’ lead was then either delivered to the lord’s agent or left to accumulate at the mill and to be accounted for at the year end. In the reverberatory smelting, much larger quantities could be handled, and for a continuous process, much more uniform dressing and preparation of ore was required, and it may be that one of the great contributions of the new procéss was the improve-

ment it induced in ore preparation.! In 1787 there was also a trial of ore hearth against reverberatory at the London Lead Company’s smelt mill at Egglestone, Teesdale, which is minuted, without details, to the Court?: Have report of trials of an Air Furnace against a Blast Hearth at Egglestone Mill. Advantage great for the Air Furnace so order 2 be built in Whitfield mill.

These trials were for slag smelting. In mining practice many of the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century methods were systematised and carried to greater efficiency in the next hundred years. Shaft sinking was proceeding to greater depths, and the report already quoted from Derbyshire speaks of shafts nearly 200 ft deep which had been abandoned some year, before 1720, and were now standing in several fathoms of water.

Two problems are presented here: haulage from greater depths, and drainage. The method of sinking shafts in many short stages was slowly replaced by the direct sinking of a single deep shafts using a gim for winding. The gin had a vertical shaft carrying a winding barrel for the rope, which was directed down the shaft over guide pulleys; it was turned by means of horizontal arms moved by men or horses walking on a circle round the gin. Both are figured by Agricola, but were not in general use in this country 1 A, Raistrick. Historical notes on the reverberatory furnace for lead smelting and refining. Mine and Quarry Engineering (1938) 227-229. 2L.L.C.M. 14, Dec. 1787.

27

Lead Mining in the Pennines until the seventeenth century. Plott in his History of Staffordshire, 1686, says that when mines troubled by water are to be drained ‘the ordinary ways they use are by sough or gin. The former when they have the advantage of fall of ground enough ... but when they have no fall they draw it up by gin. The gin is turned by men or horses, using barrels.’ In the coal fields gins were used for lifting water, and at Bedworth Colliery in 1622 a team of 60 horses was used to draw water from the pits. The gins were also used for the haulage of coal and ore in metal buckets, generally called kibbles, and it was by the new power of the horse gin that shafts had been taken successfully down to depths of tens of fathoms. The soughs were in occasional use for short distances in the seven-

teenth century, but in the eighteenth they were taken much further, the one in the Winster mines of the London Lead Company in 1722 being already 100 fathoms long and pushing forward. The

principal development of the sough in the eighteenth century was the realisation that a well-planned sough might drain a whole group of veins and so might be to the mutual benefit of many different lessees. The London Lead Company’s mines in Winster and Wensley were continued and the sough carried forward with varying success, but by 1741 the tunnel was approaching the line of old workings on the Mill Close Vein, half a mile west of the

river, and it was decided to purchase this mine. The purchase was completed on 8 January 1742/43! between Joseph Whitfield and Thomas Westgarth for the Company, and Stephen Bagshaw, Barmaster, acting for the old partners, fourteen in number, for £1,050.

In the next year the level already driven through some of the Company’s veins was carried forward and cut the Mill Close vein,

being now christened the Mill Close Low Level. Watering Close ‘vein was being worked further to the west and parallel to the Mill Close vein, and the level was carried forward toward it with the

idea of unwatering a rich complex of veins immediately to the west of it. To fr-ilitate this a lease was taken of ground in Birchover parish, in which some of the new veins lay, and a second sough

was started from the mouth of the Cowley Brook, on the Derwent, in 1734 and driven west to the Yatestoop vein, reaching eventually a length of 2,800 yd. As Mill Close mine was opened out it was

soon evident that the sough was intersecting the vein only at a 17,.L.D. No. 2.

128

Opening of the Technical Age small depth, so in order to win a greater depth a pumping engine was necessary to lift water up to the sough level. A 42 in cylinder

‘fire engine’ was supplied by Darby of Coalbrookdale in November 1748, and for some years this arrangement was very satisfactory.!

In 1759 the sale of this engine to the Dalefield Mine was considered, but deferred for a time, then in 1764 a Court Minute reads ‘Mull Close Mine has been effectively tried under level and

there is no prospect of success. Resolved to stop the Fire Engine. ... There is no evidence of Dalefield Mine taking up its previous offer for the engine, and in 1768 it was sold to the Gregory Mine, Ashover, who record for that year: ‘the Gear or Drawing Shaft on the Hill side was sunk. In the same year the first Steam Engine,

called the Old Engine

below the Hill, was

erected and lifted the water to the sough in one of the shafts sunk in or about 1763 by means of Slide rods, there was a good deal of Ore got before the Engine was set to work by means of hand pumping and drawing water by Horses.’2

This engine was apparently successful as the mine soon entered on its most prosperous period. In 1771 the engine in a fourteen-week

period was using 323 tons of coal. In 1779 reports that the new type of engine made by Boulton and Watt was using far less coal

led to enquiries, and eventually a Boulton and Watt engine was supplied with a 45 in diameter cylinder, 8 ft stroke. It was guaranteed not to consume more than 255 lb of coal per hour working at

nine strokes a minute, and ‘to work a pump of 13 inches diameter and go yards high at the rate of 1o strokes of 6 Feet long each in one minute — and shall be able to give the necessary motion to

214 yards of dry rods’. This fitted the depth of 304 yd of the new shaft sunk to use it. By 1791 the Boulton and Watt engine was in poor condition and was taking 300 tons of coal to 400 used by the Newcomen. Both engines, however, worked until the mine, due®o declining production and thinning of the veins, finally closed down in 1803. It is interesting to note the Gregory engine as one of the few 1 A, Raistrick. Mill Close Mine, Derbyshire, 1720-1780. Proc. U.D.P.S. 10 (1938) 38-47. A. Raistrick. Dynasty of Ironfounders: Darby and Coalbrookdale (I.ondon

1953) 140-142. 2 G. G. Hopkinson. Lead mining in 18th-century Ashover. D.A.7. 72 (1952) 7.

9

129

Lead Mining in the Pennines successful applications of the steam engine in the northern lead mining fields. In 1811 Farey says of the steam engine: The Lead-Miners of Derbyshire, early availed themselves of this powerful auxiliary: at Yatestoop the first one was erected, and where, about 80 years ago, four Steam-Engines were working at one time, previous to the erection of a 50 inch Atmospheric Engine (about 30 years ago) on the Level underground, a method which has not elsewhere been followed in this district. In a few years after their introduction 10 SteamEngines were erected in the immediate neighbourhood of Winster. The Mine Engines at any time used in the district were, at Dale and Haybrook Mine, in Warslow, Staffordshire, Dimple, Gregory 2, Lady-gate, Limekilns and Drake, Mill-Close, Mullet-hill, Placket 2, Portway Pipe

2, Seven-Rakes, Water-Grove, Westedge, and Yatestoop 5. In 1810, the only Lead-Mine Pumping-Engine going in the district, was the newly erected one on Lady-gate vein, at Matlock Bridge.! The first engine mentioned above, at Yatestoop, would be the

one installed there in 1720, for which, in that year the barmaster gave “possession of a twenty fourth of a seventh part of the fire

Ingin and all the ore that shall belong to the above said part att Yatestoop it being part of a composition belonging to Mr Sparrow his undertaking at the Yatestoop’. Nellie Kirkham points the importance of this evidence as establishing that shares in the engine were held under the cost-book system. She quotes other entries in the barmaster’s books for similar sharing of ‘fire engines’ in 1738 and 1740 in which Mr Hornblower is named. Both Burslem

Sparrow and Mr Hornblower, probably Joseph (1695-1762) or his son Jonathon (1717-1780), were connected with early steam engines, here and elsewhere. Before 1733 Anthony Barker, who was the London Lead Company’s manager at Gadlis, Flintshire, and for a time had the

early management of the Derbyshire mines until the appointment of Joseph Whitfield, had bought the parts for five steam engines, of which one or two may have been for Derbyshire. In the Coalbrookdale Cash Books, Richard Beech of Walton, Staffordshire,

figures as a regular customer for cylinders and other engine parts for some of his collieries, but in 1724 three engine cylinders were 1 Farey, 338. See also F. Nixon. The early steam engine in Derbyshire. 7.N.S.

31 (1957-59).

130

Opening of the Technical Age sold to Mr Beech of Winster Mines, and there are some accounts

for transport costs from Coalbrookdale to Winster. A contemporary account exists of three steam engines at Yatestoop Mine, in the diary of the Rev. James Clegg, 28 September 1730!: came to Winster about noon. Saw 3 curious Engines at work there, which by ye force of fire heating water to vapour a produgious weight of water was raised from a very great depth, and a vast quantity of lead ore laid dry.

The role of the steam engine in Derbyshire have been to unwater ground that was below were within the compass of sough drainage, and determined by the depth of the Derwent valley

seems mainly to the levels which these levels were at various points

along its course. The mineralisation extended to greater

depth

than this, so that when the capital available was sufficient to bear the cost of the steam engine there was in some cases ore to be won

below sough levels. _ Driving the early soughs was a task beset by many problems. The Alport sough by 1718 had ‘run in’ and failed to drain the mines at which it had arrived. In 1749 an agreement was made with the lord of the manor to reopen and continue this sough in the Windy Harbour vein, to unwater the mines of Harthill manor, and by driving it in the vein to get some ore towards its cost.3 If the soughs were driven in a direct line from the mouth to the mines

through “dead ground’, they represented a very big capital outlay and the usual method was to arrange a partnership of all the mine proprietors likely to benefit. In practice, however, this very reasonable arrangement led to many difficulties. Small or struggling mines which might be improved in five or ten years’ time when the sough reached them were often unable to weather the

intervening period and to maintain their proportionate payments. When the drive was particularly long or slow, veins at the far end had often been followed to such depths that by the time the driving of the sough was completed they were nearly down to 1 N. Kirkham. Yatestoop sough. Bull. Peak Dist. 5-21. A. Raistrick. Dynasty of Ironfounders (London and Hornblower. L. T. C. Rolt. Thomas Newcomen 2 Nellie Kirkham. The drainage of the Alport (1961). 3 Ibid. 2.

131

Mines Hist. Soc. 1 (1962) pt. 7, 1953) chaps. 8 and 9 for Sparrow (London 1963) 9o. lead mines, Derbyshire. 7.N.S.

Lead Mining in the Pennines sough level, and so had little benefit from it. For these and other reasons the great soughs were mainly the work of large proprietors who had sufficient capital and enough spread of leases to carry the steady expense of driving, for ten, twenty or more years. Permission or wayleave to drive a sough was occasionally let or sold to a

partnership of adventurers who counted on proportions from the mines benefited to make a profit.1 Before starting a sough, agreements were drawn up and a surveyed ‘water level’ mark was recorded in the mines likely to

benefit, so that ore got later below this level paid its proper proportion to the sough owners. The greatest area of sough development was in Derbyshire, where the Derwent valley, with its

numerous shorter tributary dales, penetrated the mineral field and made short soughs possible. The Yatestoop sough inspired many others but few of them had the same adequate returns. Farey

Writing in 1811 says: ‘it may be right, however, here to mention that most of these soughs have proved unprofitable speculations, owing to the tedious time they were in driving, the Miners in the meantime continuing their exertions by pumping and short soughs’.2 Except at Mill Close Mine, very little mining has been done in Derbyshire below the level of the great soughs, the few exceptions being larger companies comparable to the Mill Close group, such as the Gregory mines, Ashover. In Yorkshire the shape of the ground called for much longer soughs, and only a few were driven at great capital cost, and these mainly towards the end of the eighteenth and in the early nine-

teenth century. Neither was the steam engine much used in these fields, the cost of coal and its transport being prohibitive. Even on low ground near a principal road, not far from the South Durham 1 Public notices in the following form were to be seen in the mining areas. TO

BE

LETT

At the House of Mr William Lovatt, being the New Bath at Matlock, on Friday the 24th day of July next [1760], upon such Terms as shall then and there be produced; Full Power and Authority to drive up a SOUGH from the Bottom of a piece of Wood-ground, within Cromford, in the county of Derby, called Birchwood ... to ... Vains of Lead Ore within the several Manors of Cromford, Worksworth, and Middleton ... will Procure the Proprietors a great Composition from the Owners of the Mines already discovered which for want of such a Level cannot be further wrought. 2 Farey, 1, 332:

132

Opening of the Technical Age coal field, in 1759 a steam engine.at the Middleton Tyas copper mine was found to be more expensive than a battery of horses working gins.! Coal was 11s a ton at the mine, and the engine was

tried against horses. The particulars for the horses will be relevant for almost any mine. 40 Fathom shaft, 2 Horses to Work 3 Hours for a shift will Draw 35

Tubbs of water in an hour each Tubb containing 80 gallons — in 24 Hours 67,200 Gallons. 8 Shifts of Horses 2 in each Shift including Driver will Deserve 3sh per Shift which in 24 Hours is 24sh. and does not draw 4 the quantity which a Fire Engine does.

In spite of the threefold capacity of the steam engine, the cost of coals, with the wages of the men tending it, and the great capital cost, make it a more expensive way of draining than the older way by means of the horse gin. The hand pick, hammer and wedges remained as the principal tools of the miner in his work of ore getting underground, and little use was made of gunpowder until the second half of the eighteenth century. It is difficult to find any early records of its regular use, though it is mentioned, but more as a curiosity, at the

end of the seventeenth century. Bishop Watson made some investigations into the time when gunpowder was discovered, and coming to its application to mining says?: In answer to an inquiry which I made concerning the time when blasting was introduced at the famous copper mine at Ecton in Staffordshire, I received the following from a very able and intelligent person. ‘I can give you a little better information concerning the affair of blasting. I have known that country where the mine is, above fifty years; and have often seen the smith’s shop in which, tradition says, the first boring auger that had ever been used in England was made; and that the first

shot that was ever fired in Derbyshire or Staffordshire, was fired in this very copper mine at Ecton. The inhabitants of Wetton (a village adjoining the mine) tell me the auger was made by some German miners, sent for over by Prince Rupert to work this copper mine at Ecton.’.. . I would observe that the manner of splitting rocks by gunpowder as practised at Liége, was published by the Royal Society in 1665; and 1 A. Raistrick. The copper deposits of Middleton Tyas, North Yorkshire. Naturaltst (1936) ITI-II5. 2 R. Watson. Chemical Essays (Cambridge 1784) 1, 342-44.

133

Lead Mining in the Pennines that it was not till the year 1684, that the miners in Somersetshire began to use gunpowder. In the year 1668 Prince Rupert was chosen governor of the Society for the Mines Royal; and as he lived fourteen years after that appointment, it is not improbable that he might send for the German miners in consequence of his connexion with that society.

This dating would agree well with the report that Mr Beaumont introduced the boring auger into the Tyneside coalfield in the latter part of the seventeenth century. The use of gunpowder depends upon the possession of a rock drill to make the powder holes, and the drill as a tool is not mentioned before the eighteenth century. In the extension of a shaft in the Lownathwaite mine in

Swaledale, however, in 1685, the sinking was interrupted by water which was struck in a strong feeder at 14 fathoms depth. After sinking a further 8 fathoms they could no longer cope with the inflow, so they put down a 24 in borehole into some workings

13 fathoms below, which were connected with a shaft up which the water was pumped 35 fathoms to surface.! This suggests that

boring rods like those in use by Beaumont for the exploration of deeper coal seams-were known in Swaledale, but for blasting it was the smaller diameter hand drill or “borier’ that would be used. There is a record of the use of gunpowder in a small lead mine in Colsterdale, near Masham, Yorkshire, in 1699,2 and it was probably in use in Swaledale at the same period. In 1725 a powder house was built near Langthwaite, in Arkengarthdale, for the storage of black powder, and this suggests that blasting was now a normal procedure in the Arkengarthdale mines.3 ° In the accounts relating to the London Lead Company mines in Alston Moor, the Jeffrey’s and Shildon mines in the Derwent valley, near Hunstanworth, were being developed by means of deep drainage levels. This was about 1740, and on two occasions when some particularly hard rock was encountered parcels of 10 Ib 1 Swale MSS. 2, No. 26. 2 Cunliffe-Lister MSS. (Cartwright Hall, Bradford). Mashamshire Bundle, Nos. 16and 18. 3 Drawings of this Powder House: will be found in R. T. Clough, The Lead Smelting Mills of the Yorkshire Dales (privately printed, Leeds 1962) 142-143: This volume by an architect can be recommended for the plans of smelt mills, regarded as buildings. The drawings have little technical detail of furnaces or equipment other than furnace foundations, water-wheel pits and bellows traces. It is a valuable record

of these fast disappearing structures. —

134

Opening of gunpowder were issued hard rock work must have for in 1743 ten half-barrels

of the Technical. Age to the drivers. The value of its help in been appreciated from this experience, of gunpowder were ordered from Lon-

don; and after several similar orders over the next few years,

gunpowder became a regular item in the accounts, being sent from London in regular lots of forty half-barrels.1 In the large-scale development plan using cross-cuts, on Alston Moor, the use of gunpowder for hard-rock working became the normal practice.

The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were a period during which little change was made in the methods of dressing ores, the principal means being still hand crushing and picking, washing in the straight buddle and with the sieve. The only serious change was due to the introduction of the reverberatory furnace in which, because of the much gentler draught used, the finest ores could be smelted. This caused far more attention to be paid to the ‘slimes’ ~ the fine grained section from the washing sieves and buddles that had been too small for the ore hearth. The ‘keeve’ or Dolly Tub

was introduced and was mainly used by boys and girls. The tub was filled about a third full of water which was stirred round vigorously with a shovel. A boy acted as server and put fine bouse or slimes into the keeve, a shovelful at a time, scattering it into the stirring water bit by bit, until the keeve was nearly full. The stirrer

kept the mixture tossing about, then finally let all settle. Two boys hammered the sides of the tub with mallets for about quarter of an hour after the tossing; this helped the bouse to ‘pack’. The water was then poured off and the top surface of the settled material, which is waste, was taken off. The remainder is mixed

material with an increasing ore concentration towards the base. A rather larger trunk buddle, 10 ftx 3 ftx gin deep, was used for treating the finest fractions, and with a slow-water current much ore was recoverable from the slimes, suitable for the reverberatory furnace. Pryce says in 1778: ‘There can be no doubt that the

Cornish were almost entirely obliged to the Derbyshire and other lead miners for the best methods of dressing ore in the first place’,2 and much of this early skill must follow from the early adaptation

of the sieve in the sixteenth century. 11,.L.A.M. 2 April 1740. ‘Sent from London to Thos. Westgarth last year & omitted 10 half barrels of gunpowder chargd at London £25 2s 6d.’ 2 W. Pryce. Mineralogia Cornubiensis (London 1778) 243.

aS

Lead Mining in the Pennines The use of the sieve was partly responsible for troubles and legal battles which affected Derbyshire mining in the eighteenth century. Early in the century when the mines were experiencing some difficulty, the Duke of Devonshire as a measure of encourage-

ment to the small miner eased the demand for duty ore by exempting from duty or lot the smitham, the fine ore which had

passed

through the standard sieve, and charged duty only on the larger ore which had remained on the sieves or had been brought out of

the mine in lumps. The charge was levied that many miners were beating their ore fine in such a way as to produce an undue proportion of duty-free smitham, in fact, in 1747 at the Portway mine

the figures returned were, for large ore (bing and peasy ore) on which duty lot was taken, 500 loads, but for duty-free smitham, 4,586 loads. In 1750 the miners were accused of ‘unnecessarily, wilfully, and

designedly breaking and beating down the larger duty ore into smitham’. It was estimated that for some years less than one load of ore in six had paid lot. The miners replied that the ore could not be made merchantable without this beating, and this might well have an element of truth in it when much of the smelting was done in the reverberatory furnace. A suit was lodged in the Court of Chancery but after many delays it moved to the House of Lords in 1759, and in 1760 a final verdict was given that smitham, like larger ore, was subject to pay the thirteenth dish as lot.!

The stamps used for crushing ore are credited as a Cornish invention, but in view of Pryce’s statement as late as 1778 it is

worth noting that the London Lead Company were building and using stamps as much as forty years before the date of Pryce.

When their mines in Alston Moor got well opened out their smelting was concentrated at the three mills we have already mentioned, Whitfield, Acton and Jeffrey’s. All these smelted ores,

slags, Black slag and test bottoms, and all refined lead and extracted silver. The amounts of work at the various mills varied and ores were sent from the different mines to more than one of the mills. It 1s not necessary to give year-by-year accounts for the lead and

silver, but we might take the silver recovered as a rough index of the activity, when by 1737 they were producing between 500 and 1 Nellie Kirkham. Winster sough. P.D.M.H.S. 1 (1961) pt. 5, 10-29.

136

Opening of the Technical Age 600 oz of silver a month.! In August 1746 the new Nent Head mill began to smelt, but for twenty years confined its work to smelting

the Rampgill ores and occasional parcels of duty ore bought in; its lead was sent to Acton Mill for refining. There was advantage for the reverberatory furnace smelting in» having the ores finely ground, and this enabled slime ores to be

used. The Black slags were also ground up fine for resmelting. ‘To achieve this, the hand breaking of ore was partly replaced by stamp mills erected at the smelt mill dressing floors, where Black slag and some of the roughly dressed ore could be dealt with. The

accounts occur at each mill in turn in 1737 and 1738, in the following form: £ Jeffry’s mill Dec. 1737 Thos Foster Engineer making a wheel 14 days @ 22d. d. & his son setting up the stamps 18 days @ 16d. Geo. Grey walling up ye stamp case 24 days @ 16d. work at the water course 4 days @ tod. Jos. Ramsey to fo. timber for ye Wheel @ 18d. Acton Mill June 1738 Thos. Foster making ye Stamps p. contr. do making ye Cams 1 day Ric. Harle casting ye iron beaters 8 c. 16 lbs.

sd

15 8 I 4 0 I 12 0 3.4 I5 0 4 5

00 2 0 6 0

Other items, including making and repairing stamps at these mills and at Whitfield Mill, occur and wages are paid to workmen for time ‘at ye Stamps’, all being debited to the smelting account. 1 The detail of the smelt mills is taken from L.L.A.M. The following figures give an idea of the scale of working of the mills in the Derwent mines. Ounces of silver

1738

Acton 2,085

Jeffrey’s 1,998

Whitfield 2,610

total oz. silver 6,673

1739

25252

1,641

3,051

1745

3,407

1,851

3,255

8,513

1755 1765

7,041 6,953

1,607 3,412

3,802 5,282

12,450 15,647

6,917

Much of the ore averaged when refined, 20+ ounces of silver per ton of lead, but some, like Clargill, occasionally reached about 40. 2 Additional items are scattered all through the smelting accounts in the Quarterly Summary, e.g. ‘31 Dec. 1737. Jos Ramsey timber for an Axletree 52 fo at 2s 7d, £6 1s 4d. Jno Oxley for the Wheels 224 fo @ 28d, £18 13s 4d’. Items for pumps are also found among the miscellaneous accounts.

T3d

Lead Mining in the Pennines At the same time, Jeffrey’s and Shildon mines were driving drainage levels, and the accounts include some items under these

headings, which are of interest. It is clear that for ventilation, pipes were used to carry air up the level: Shildon Dec. 1737 50 yards of Air Pipes @ 20d. 2 Angle pipes.

[£4 2s 4d

Jeffry’s June 1738 levell: putting in air pipes and drawing water. etc. etc.

In this driving, when particularly hard rock was met, gunpowder was used, but this was only rarely for some years yet to come. In three years there are only two entries for gunpowder, 10 lb being issued to one of the drivers. Dressing the ores remained as a woman’s job throughout the eighteenth century and a very large number of records are available in illustration. At Breckonsike Mine in Weardale, the Bargain Book contains the names of many women workers.1 July 23. 1753. Lett to Margaret Milburn to wash up the cuttings at the Level Head Shaft, from the Knockstone downward at 12s per bing. Lett to Ann Muncaster and Sarah Barker to wash up the wastes at the Random Shaft and Little Shaft at 15s per bing, till June ye 30th. 1754 Lett to Ann Vipond and son to wash the cuttings above Margaret Milburn at Level Head Shaft at 15s per bing. Let to Hannah Murrah and Hodgson’s lass to wash the cuttings at Ra. Featherston’s shaft from Stephen Dawson’s Buddle downward at 12s per bing. Lett to Jane

Smith; Jane Stephenson, Jane Hobson, and 3 lads to wash the cuttings above Stephen Dawson’s Buddle at Ra. Featherston’s shaft at 12s per bing.

Similar entries could be quoted from the same bargain book between 1751 and 1759. At the same time there was some washing

and dressing of old wastes, for example, ‘Sept. 17. 1755. Let to John Rumney and Jos. James a bargain to get oar from out of the old wastes, where Arthur Watson had his late bargain, at 18s. per bing.’ 1 Quoted by G. Neasham. North Country Sketches (Durham 1893) 219-222. Neasham quotes from the original Partnership Bargain Book 1751-59, but this cannot now be found. :

138

Opening of the Technical Age With the introduction of the horse whim in the eighteenth century it became possible to carry mines to much greater depths

than ever before and by the middle of the century 30, 40 and 50 fathoms are depths commonly encountered. The Water Levels solved part of the problem of drainage and ventilation for a time, but as the ore shoots above water level were worked out or found,

as is usually the case, to persist along the vein only for a limited distance before thinning or even nipping out, there was an increased incentive to work downwards where the vein had proved rich. To

they were in difficulties with water. Their location made a water level impossible and lifting by buckets was inefficient and costly so they .called in Brown to build an ‘engine’, and though the

remaining letter is only a fragment, it does give some sizes. October roth. 1755. Letter from John Robinson of Richmond to Wm. Brown about an engine to be erected at Grassington in Craven. Ironwork to be made in Newcastle and sent by carrier via Richmond. Much delayed as the roads are ‘so rotton bad’. Partnership of Coalbrook Beck has ordered the engine and it needs the following timber. Fir — overtrees cross trees

60 ftx 10 in square 1, 40ftlong, gin square 2, 36ftlong, 9 in square.

Mr Brown will send his own Enginewright over to select the timber.

Ironwork will be made for 34d a Ib. Must defer erecting the engine till April or May when better weather may be expected.

The London

Lead Company had before 1730 adapted the

1 Wiltam Brown’s Letter Book,137-140. Manuscript in the collection of the North of England Institution of Mining Engineers, Newcastle upon Tyne.

139

SR

middle years of the century many mines were working in depth with the help of mechanical pumping ‘engines’. In some mines where pumps lifting to surface level were already at work and it was possible to bring home a water level, this was done. and the power released by no longer needing the lift above Water Level to ground, became available for pumping below level. Some pumps were worked by horse gins and we get a glimpse of their size from the letter book of William Brown, a Newcastle mining engineer.1 On Grassington Moor one of the early groups of mine venturers were working in the Coalgrovehead vein before 1750, and in 1755

i

get below drainage level it was necessary to pump, and by the

Lead Mining in the Pennines water-wheel to working pumps, and at Jeffrey’s mine they paid “Thos. Westgarth,

1 qurs. Salary & Engine keeping, £5’. This

charge for ‘engine keeping’ was paid regularly and at some other of their mines as well. In \737 a second wheel and set of pumps

was made at Jeffrey’s mine, and there are still available the accounts for making a dam and water course, cutting the wheel case, making the wheel, supplying two cranks and two bobs, and thirteen pumps; the pumps were set and the wheel began its work when the water level was brought up, and so this new wheel was to pump below level.! An obvious mechanical economy on this

arrangement was worked out in the Blackett mine at Burtree Pasture, Weardale, where two water-wheels used for pumping were placed underground on the Water Level and the stream was carried down the shaft on to them, their tail water running away through the water level along with the discharge from the pumps. This arrangement was later applied to winding with an underground wheel on the Horse Level.”

A very ingenious adaptation was in operation at the Allenheads mine where on three of the old shafts, the Old, Middle and New Engine shafts, four water-wheels were erected underground at

different levels so that one stream of water could pass in succession over them. The water was raised to the Haugh Level which had

been driven by Blackett in 1684, and this also took the tail water from the wheels. At Mill Close mine in Derbyshire the steam engine built in 1748 worked pumps which lifted water from 48 yd below the water level at the main shaft, and by an ingenious arrangement of rods and cranks worked a second pump at another shaft, lifting 50 yd on to the water level. This use of rods for power transmission was fairly common at the surface, particularly in the nineteenth century. It was possible to locate a water-wheel at a point most convenient for water, and through a crank to move a set of rods backwards and forwards in

linear motion. The rods were usually suspended from low tripods, jointed and carried for several hundred yards in some cases. They 1 1.L.A.M. 30 June 1738. ‘Thos. Foster making a wheel for ye Engine £6 6s od’ and other scattered items. 2 MS drawing in the author’s collection. See fig. 5. 3 Mems. Geol. Surv. Mins. Nd. 61-64 and pl. to.

140

Opening of the Technical Age could run over any inequality of ground, or go uphill, though the weight of the rods added greatly to the load if the hill were steep.

The remote end would connect with a bell-crank level for straight up-and-down pump work, but could, if necessary give a circular motion through a crank. Little remains of the many courses of

rods but the occasional base of a suspension unit, or the startling distance and possible difference of level between a water-wheel and the mine it served. There are occasional stone bases which

held ‘turn-wheel’ levers, which could deflect the rods through any angle. The rods seem to have been more used in Yorkshire than in the other fields, and are found both in Wharfedale and

Swaledale.

14!

Chapter 7

Technical Developments to 1780 The development of the Alston Moor mining field in the eighteenth century was greatly affected by the political events connected

with the rebellions of 1715 and 1745. In 1664 Sir Francis Radcliffe, afterwards the Earl of Derwentwater, leased to George Bacon of Broadwood Hall, Allendale, ‘all the lead ore in the manor

of Aldstone Moor for 3 years, at the sum of 37s for every bing load of lead ore that is or shall be gotten within the said liberties during the said term, being fifths, or otherwise to the said Francis’.1 This lease was renewed and John Bacon, the son, is

mentioned in an entry in the Parish Registers, 1692: ‘Mr John Pattison steward to Mr Bacon at the Lead Mills’, these being the

Allen Smelt Mill near Allendale Town. John made considerable wealth from the mines and in 1699 became high sheriff of Northumberland. About 1690 the Rampgill vein at Nent Head was discovered and proved to be very rich. The Greengill mine between Nent Head and Garrigill was also opened up then. Other work in the area was principally on and around the ancient mines of Blagill and Fletcheras and a few other smaller mines.

When the London Lead Company was formed in 1704, the Ryton Company which was absorbed by it was already smelting ore from mines in Alston Moor, mainly situated in the head of the South Tyne valley and at Blagill. By 1706 they were working in the Longhole and Browngill veins near Garrigill, and report that their level had been driven 300 yd and was within 60 fathoms of the vein. They were working three shifts and hoped to complete

the level in less than a year. This sets the pattern of their mining 1 Dickinson, 54.

142

Technical Developments to 1780 in this field, it being their general, practice when the run of a vein was known and proved by working at the surface to plan a level to reach the vein in depth, and at the same time to act as a drain for it. A report in 1721 notes that the Clargill Head mine was producing 35 oz of silver per ton of lead, and that at Windybree (Windybrow) a group of veins on the west side of Yad Moss, at the head of South Tyne and the Tees, 1,000 bings of ore had been got, a flat had been discovered and a level was carrying up which ought to open out the flat during that summer. Guddamgill Moss was also being approached by a level.! Their main smelt mill was now Whitfield, and we are fortunate in having the accounts for this mill in summary form for the half year of 1724 included in the Court Minutes, and these will give some picture of the general organisation. An Acct. of Ores, Small Stuffes & Slaggs smelted at Whitfield Cupola since ye 28th Dec. 1723 to 20th June 1724, with the prices of Oares & ye Carr. of them & also ye Cha. of ye Smelting, Refining & reducing with ye Carr. of ye Lead to Newcastle as here is underwritten. Dr. £ 40 Bings of small Stuff at 36s p bing 60 do of Browngills ore @ 41s p do 260 do of Blaygills & others @ 41s p do The Cha. of the Carr. of these ores being 360 Bing at 2s 6d p bing one with another is And the Cha. of Smelting Refining & reducing of 97 fodders of lead is ye sum of And lost by reducing the sd. 97 fodder of Lead just 13 fodds. & 18 lb @ £14 pr fodder And the Carr. of the 83 fodds. & 3 cwts to Newcastle for sale at 14s p fodder is ye sum of ;

Ballance due upon this Acct.

72 123 533

s -

-

45

-

-

169

-

-

194

-

-

55

4

-

1,194

4

409 II

—

74

1,603 15 73 Profit at Blagill 12.L.C.M. 5. June 1721.

143

Lead Mining in the Pennines 264 Bings of ore besides ye Lords dues wh. is sold for 41s p our Ch. for it will be about £262 & if so there will be about £180 of this last half year. Profit at Tynehead. Cha. on 60 Bings of ore most of it got at Clargill Head {120 Profitt to Ballance 60 , Cr.

18

bing & profitt

-

-~

-

-

s

d

-

-

Lead made from the 360 Bings of ore & Small Stuffe as in the weekly operations may be seen is 69 fodds. at {14 p foddr. And lead made from Slaggs as by ye Smelting acct will appear Twenty eight Fodd. at {14 p foddr. is yesum of

966 392

-

And Silver drawen from ye Lead 893 oz 5dwtat5s6dpoz

245

15

74

1,603 15

7%

Tynehead By 60 Bings @ £3

180

-

-

-

The company continued to take more small mines in groups, and in most cases laid out a level as the approach to a vein complex. After the rebellion of 1715, the estates of the Earl of Derwentwater were forfeited to the Crown and in 1735 were assigned to

the Commissioners of the Greenwich Hospital for Seamen. The Commissioners worked one of the mines themselves and offered 31 other mines on lease, but after some years gradually withdrew

from the actual mining. In 1736 the London Lead Company made an offer to take longer term leases of some of the mines! for,

18 October, ‘the Co. proposes a lease of all the estate of the late Ld. Derwentwater in Alston Moor for 21 yrs at 1/7. Amended to farm of 1/6 and to lay out £5,000 in dead work’. They also pro-

posed a twenty-one years’ lease of Blagill at one-fifth find £400 in dead work and to employ thirty men for not less than eight months

each year, and for Redgroves at one-fifth with {1,000 deadwork, and thirty men

for eight months

a year.

The Commissioners

replied that Colonel Liddell was a better bidder and his offer was accepted, but he soon sub-leased Blagill to the Company. In 1745 1 7.L.C.M. 8. 18 October 1736.

144

Technical Developments to 1780 he assigned all his leases in Alston Moor to the Company. Soon after this the Greenwich Hospital Commissioners agreed to lease groups of mines and even areas to the London Lead Company, who then leased the large Priorsdale estate at one-sixth and a

number of mines - Longhole Head, Dowpot Sike, Long Cleugh, Shawfoot Sun, Middle Cleugh, Brownley Hill, Guddamgill, Newberry, and others, which gave them the nucleus of their great Nent

Head estate.1 When the Greenwich Hospital took over the Moor their survey records that twenty-five individuals and companies were working fifty-one mines.2 When the fifty-one mines were offered for lease in 1736 they employed 19 washers and 162 miners. Colonel Liddell made a thorough survey of the leases and had 121 pickmen, 20 labourers and 26 washers at work for him. He estimated a profit of £104,544 as the amount to be made during the run of the twenty-

one year leases he had taken, but this dream was of course never realised. He brought together a number of partners and formed a company which in 1737 decided to build a smelt mill at Nent Head, partly in anticipation of profits from Rampgill mine.* The details of this mill are of interest. ... Bargains made for building a Smelt-Mill viz £ Let Joseph Archer and Thomas Yeates the Winning of Slates for Covering one side of the House at 30s per Room.

sd

Each Room to be 34 yds, 7 Rooms

7.0.

0

Mr Emerson will furnish Slates for the other half Let Thomas Forster the Wheele to make and Bellos Frames and hanging for 4 Harths and all other things belonging to the Works Let John and Thomas Watson all the Slates to lead from finely fell and Killup Let Peter Muncaster and Nicks Lee the winning Leading and walling all the House and Wheelhole and plastering the Chimneys, Casting the Foundations of House and Wheelehole for

1,

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12.L.C.M. 10. May 1745. 2 Wallace, App. II. 3 F, J. Monkhouse. An eighteenth-century company promoter. Cumb. and West. Ant. & Arch. Soc. Trans. 40, n.s. (1940) 148. Monkhouse quotes the note books of Liddell which are in the P.R.O. among the Admiralty Papers, identified as Adm. 79, and which relate to the affairs of the Greenwich Hospital in Alston Moor. 4 P.R.O. Adm. 79/35.

10

T45

Lead Mining in the Pennines Richard Featherston offered to take all the Carpenter Work, Saweing and Hewing and the Chimneys and Cases and 4 Windows, Saweing the Wall plates etc. (Slates he has been so empowered) The Laths is to be Included of Oake (N.B. Lowest tender of five offered) I2 Total I00

0 0

0 O

There are other items including watercourses, totalling £95 and Ironstone for three Hearths and bringing it there cost £63 6s 6d and 4 Pairs of Bellows with Carriage £54 total

117

6

6

By Michaelmas 1738 the total cost on completion was £900. Liddell calculated that the four hearths would each work at double shifts for forty weeks a year and would smelt 24 fothers of lead each week. This would produce for all four 3,840 fothers a year. The Refining House had four furnaces, and these were estimated to produce 2,100 fothers of refined lead and a Reducing House with one furnace was to produce 760 fothers. These figures were not realised as during the first eighteen months Liddell had 95 pickmen, 20 labourers and 18 washers working, and the total

production was 865 bings iess 215 bings paid in duty ore. This is an annual average of about 433 bings, whereas his estimate was 2,526 bings.! The total disbursements of the Company in the first

year were £6,333 16s od, and the total receipts not more than £1,200. From 1739 the partners gradually disassociated and by 1745 the smelt mill had been sold to the London Lead Company.?

The mill was redesigned with two reverberatory furnaces and a slag hearth and was brought into work by the Lead Company in

rebuilding the Alston Parish Church. By 1786 it was stated: ‘the Moor-Master’s duty had become so heavy within these three years on account of the great increase in the Mines’ that an assistant

was appointed.3 The production of the mines by that date was: 1 Monkhouse, op. cit. 152. 2 L.L.C.M. 10. May 1745. 3 P.R.O. Adm. 66. G.H. Out-letters, 1, 96.3.

146

_

largest mining group in Alston Moor and were taking their part in

the life of the area. They subscribed {£500 towards the promotion of the new road from Hexham to Penrith and gave £50 towards

ee

August 1746. The London Lead Company were now well established as the

Technical Developments to 1780 Year 1766 1767 1768

18,600 bings of dressed ore 24,450 bings of dressed ore 18,730 bings of dressed ore

£ 61,950 77,162 62,215

This ore was won from 119 individual mines of which 103 were leased from the Greenwich Hospital.1 The duty ore paid to the Hospital was sold to the London Lead Company, but in 1767 the Hospital Commissioners built their own mill near

Langley Castle at which, until 1833, they smelted all their duty ores.2

This phase of the development of Alston Moor may be regarded as the prelude to a vast scheme of modernisation, the first signifi-

cant event of which was the planning by John Smeaton? of the Nent Force Level in 1776. The London Lead Company had confirmed their faith in the value of levels for drainage and for the underground movement of bouse, and also in the advantage of

large area leases instead of scattered mines, however good some of -them may be. The general practice was still to dress the bouse at

each individual mine and then convey the dressed ore ‘smelt mill, until when Nent Head Mill was finished ‘took over most of the work, with a noticeable saving costs. With ‘Alston Moor we can conveniently consider

to Whitfield it gradually in transport the mines of

the Derwent valley as they were regarded by the London Lead

Company as a part of their northern group to be managed from Alston Moor. In 1708 the company leased from the Forsters two mines near Blanchland, Shildon, which had worked in the fifteenth century and proved rich in silver, and Jeffrey’s, which had opened in the seventeenth century; and to these they soon added two

others, Ramshaw and Whiteheaps, each of the four including a complex of several veins. In 1710 they built the Acton Mill for this group, and to keep it in full work, and following the policy they had adopted in Alston Moor, they bought in the duty ore from 1 W. Hutchinson. The History of Cumberland (1794). 2 F, J. Monkhouse. The Greenwich hospital smelt mill at Langley, Northumberland, 1768 to 1780. Inst. Min. & Met. July 11 (1940 3 John Smeaton, Civil Engineer, 1724-92, best known for his Eddystone Lighthouse, was appointed Receiver of the Greenwich Hospital Northern Estates.

147

Lead Mining in the Pennines.

their own and other mines. Their arrangement with Lord Barnard for duty ore from his mines was: 30s a bing for 500 bings of ore, and after that 6d a bing extra for every rise of 5s in the price per fother of lead.1 Shildon mine was approached by a level which drained a new depth on the veins reached by cross-cuts, and the mine proved fairly rich. Jeffrey’s was opened out both with level and shaft and in 1713 a new mill was built near the mine to smelt Jeffrey’s,

Whiteheaps and Ramshaw ore as well as some of the purchased duty ore. Small mines at Muggleswick were added to this group and still another small mill, that at Feldom,

was leased. The

Derwent group of mines was successful until the end of the century when in 1806 the whole group of leases was surrendered and the properties were sold.2 In the mid-eighteenth century the duty ore for Jeffrey’s and Shildon had amounted, for the years 1750 to 1765 inclusive, to £5,542, and at 1/6 this would represent ore to the value of £33,252. The development of the mines in the East and West Allendales is comparable in some respects with those of Alston Moor, as they became at an early date very largely the concern of a single company, that of the Blackett-Beaumont family, and remained in their hands until 1883. There is only a very scanty record of the work-

ing before the detailed Blackett records start in 1725, but there is sufficient to show that some mines were working in the seventeenth century, around Nine Banks in West Allendale and near what

became a very rich area in later years, Allenheads and Coalcleugh.3 There are entries of ‘grovers’ in the Allendale parish registers in

the mid-century, and at Shield Ridge in West Allendale there is the mouth

of an early level which

formerly

had a stone with an

inscription at the arch. The level was driven by William Blackett and became the main water level for the development of the Coalcleugh mines. The stone was partly destroyed at the end of last

century, but its inscription is well known: 1L.L.C.M. 4. 5 February 1711. 2 L.L.C.M. 16. 16 September 1805. ‘Messrs Skottow & Ld Crewes Trustees are about to grant a lease of mineral ground & Acton Mill to Easterby Hall & Co at the expiry of the lease which is in 13 yrs.’ Stanhope Mill was designed to take the place of Acton: ‘Co. pay £75/ann for peat moss at Acton, but Stanhope Mill is £30 & peat moss free, tho’ expected fuel will be dearer at Stanhope than at Acton.’ 3 Dickinson, 42, 43.

148

Technical Developments to 1780 IN 1684 WB BEGAN THIS LEVEL IR. IC. WL.

CL.

At the same time a similar level was driven into the Allenheads mines and remained as the very important Haugh Level, in use for a hundred and fifty years. The manor of Hexhamshire in which Allendale lies was appropriated to the Crown by Henry VIII and sold in 1632 to the Fenwicks of Wallington. In 1694 they sold the estate to William Blackett, from whom it passed to the Beaumonts, the present owners.! William Blackett at once began the development of the mines and in 1696 added to them the lease of all the mines owned

in Weardale by the bishop of Durham, at a royalty of one-ninth. This area of Weardale comes to a common boundary, at the county boundary, with the Allenheads mines, which are in geo-

logical fact a part of the same group of veins on the east side of the Burtreeford disturbance. The Allendale and Weardale mines were worked under one single management, and when the group of smelt mills was organised in 1725 the ore to each mill might be drawn from several sources and in most years was just entered with total figures at each mill under the titles Allenheads, Coalcleugh and Weardale, except in the case of one mill, that at Rookhope in Weardale, which smelted only Weardale ores. These mills were Allen, Allenheads,

Rookhope and Dukesfield. The Allen Mill was worked only for a short time by Beaumont, but the Allenheads Mill was built by him for the Allenheads and Coalcleugh ores, and it was always convenient to bring over much of the Weardale ore from near the boundary to keep the mill in full work. The Rookhope mill was in

need of repair in 1740, so it was run out and a small mill, Lintzgarth nearby, was built and served until 1750 when the Rookhope

mill had been rebuilt. The Dukesfield mill, which was on the Devil’s Water, near the hamlet of Steel, was the largest and had an 1 The estates passed by the daughter of Sir Thomas Wentworth-Blackett to her husband, Thomas. Richard Beaumont, whose grandson, Wentworth Blackett-Beaumont, transferred the northern property to his eldest son Wentworth Canning Blackett-Beaumont, Lord Allendale.

ae

Lead Mining in the Pennines average smelting of 2,000 bings per annum, increased in 1750 to over 3,000, and in 1780 to 8,000 bings. It had refining furnaces added in 1770, and until its demolition in 1837 it refined much of the Rookhope and Allendale lead. The old Allen mill, near Allendale Town, was reconditioned in 1795 and worked up about. 5,000 bings of ore per annum,! and did some refining. In Allendale, Blackett concentrated first on the Coalcleugh area at the head of West Allendale, where lies the continuation of the very rich Brownley Hill, Gudhamgill, Scaleburn and Rampgill

veins, which proved to be the richest ground of the Nent Head district. Another important mine that opened out within a few years was on the Mohopehead group of veins in Wellhope. This mine proved rich, and between 1729 and 1878 produced 4,200 tons of lead concentrates. The earliest working on the Coalcleugh veins was by a number of shallow shafts south-west of the now aban-

doned hamlet of Coalcleugh. About 1760 the Barneycraig Horse Level was started on the east bank of the West Allen, south of

Carrshield, and this level by the beginning of the century brought into production some very rich veins ore. The total length of the level is 6,500 ft, feeding a plex of levels to the various veins. Before the driving

nineteenth and flats of whole comof this level

horse gins had been used at three shafts, the Low, Middle and

High Whimsey shafts. The mine continued until 1880 when it was regarded as exhausted for lead but continued to work for zinc

until 1921. The total production of Coalcleugh between 1729 and 1920 was 194,611 tons of lead ore concentrates.” In East Allendale a single mine with a group of veins, the Allenheads Mine, was the richest single mine in the area. The Blackett-Beaumont Company won from it, between 1729 and 1896 when it closed, nearly 260,000 tons of lead concentrates. During the eighteenth century the mine was worked chiefly from

a number of gin or whimsey shafts and one long level which by the end of the century was steadily replacing the shafts. It would be fair comment to say that the Beaumont experience in Allendale coincided with that of the London Lead Company in Alston Moor in moving completely away from shaft working from the surface, 1 A. Raistrick. Lead smelting in the north Pennines during the 17th and 18th centuries. P.U.D.P.S. 9 (1936) 164-179. 2 Dunham, 196.

150

Technical Developments to 1780 and substituting the approach to their mines by long horse levels.! The London Lead Company is said to have introduced castiron waggon ways into their. mines about 1769, and this could well be true, the first cast-iron tram rails being made at Coalbrookdale in 1767, by the Quaker Company which had supplied steam engines to the London Lead Company and had been in close touch with their principal men for many years before and about that date.2 It is thought that the earliest use of trams running on wooden rails was in the coal mines of Broseley, Shropshire, about 1620. About 1670 or 1680 they had come into fairly common use in the Newcastle coal field, and among the people credited with their development were Mr Beaumont and Colonel Liddell, both of whom were later connected with the mines we are discussing.

It seems likely that tramways or waggon ways of wood were introduced into some of the mines at a fairly early date and almost certainly in the Barneycraig Horse Level in 1760. Wallis comments on the Coalcleugh waggon way because of its length and not in the language one would expect if this, the waggon way, were very rare

and novel. In some of the oldest workings penetrated from Scraith Hole mine, where there was development by the London Lead Company during the eighteenth century, many lengths of wooden rail were still in place, oak rails of about 6 ft length and approxi-

mately 4 in square section, laid on oak sleepers.3 These rails could well have carried waggons of a goodly size. The mines of the bishop of Durham in Weardale, which were leased by the Blackett-Beaumont company, were, in part, the continuation across the county boundary of veins in the Allenheads area. The northern field is bisected by a great geological disturbance, the Burtreeford Dyke, a complex belt of faulted ground and monoclinal fold which runs nearly north and south across the whole field from the south of the Tyne valley to Lune-

dale and Stainmore, crossing Weardale near Burtreeford.+ The 1 In 1769 J. Wallis, in The Natural History and Antiquities of Northumberland, 1, 120, says of Coalcleugh Mine: ‘it is said to be the deepest mine in England, 100 fathoms, a subterraneous waggon way of a mile in length leading to its ostium’. 2 A. Raistrick. Dynasty of Ironfounders (London 1953) 172-181. 3 This timber was very sound and some was brought out to day, and for a while was used in producing some excellent turnery, candle-sticks, table lamps, and standard lamps, etc. 4K. C. Dunham. The genesis of the north Pennine ore deposits. 0.7.G.S. 90 (1934) 689~720, and map pl. 24.

Lie

Lead Mining in the Pennines Alston Moor and West Allendale fields lie to the west of it, and East Allendale and Weardale, with much of Teesdale, lie on the east of it, so that most of the Blackett-Beaumont mining ground is

in the large group of veins associated with this disturbance and with the country immediately on the east flank of it. Genetically it is thus a single mining area, separated topographically into Allendale, Weardale and Teesdale. The county boundary between Durham and Northumberland in a similar way wanders across the group of mines which form the Allenheads complex, so that about half of the mine is in each county. The Weardale mines consist mainly of four groups, the Burtree Pasture, Killhope, Breconsike

and Boltsburn. The eighteenth century is marked by their steady development mainly by a combination of deep shafts and horse levels, with water levels for drainage of the higher part of the mines. In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries many water-wheels were brought into use, some of them placed underground and employed in pumping. Development was continuous and steady into the nineteenth century when, about 1820, a large-

scale increase in the rate of working was introduced. In every way the mining in Weardale followed step-by-step the story already given for the Allendales. Mining in Teesdale was slow to develop except for the Flakebrig mine in Eggleshope, which was reported in 1550 to be much neglected but formerly productive.! The Flakebrig mine had again been leased in 1663 and again in 1700, but there is little record of

much work being done until in 1753 the London Lead Company took a lease, from George Baker, of the mines in Newbiggin, for sixteen years. They began work on several mines in the group

around Pike Law, in Hudeshope and Eggleshope. Ten years later they had small mines working around Yad Moss at the very head of Teesdale, but it was not until 1771 that they really settled down in the dale. In that year they leased from Timothy Hutchinson the Flakebrig mines in Egglestone along with a smelt mill and refining house, paying for the mines one-fifth and for the smelt 1 Flakbrig 1550 Ed. VI. Grant to Robert and George Bowes of lead mines in Tees Forest in the lordship of Barnard Castle at 40s a year. The principal mine was ‘ Falkebrigge in Eggleston’ reported to be in a neglected state. 13 Eliz. Inquest held on part of the forefeited estate of the Earl of Westld. at Flakebridge...the mines were wrought in the earl’s time before his attainder and afterwards leased to Ralph Bowes.

152

Technical Developments to 1780 mill £6 a year.1 The Mannergill mines were added by another

lease in the same year and began to develop with this area as the headquarters of the Company in Teesdale, until 1904. The smelt 0< ae a = 0 iz

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| H Alongside the development of the long drainage levels and the horse level a new factor was coming into importance by the recog-

nition of the value of the cross-cut level. All the experience of generations of mine working had made familiar the fact that in each mining field the mineral veins occurred in a ‘pattern’ which might 1 Wallace, 142.

2 Wallace, 125-26. 202

3 Forster.

The Age of Mechanisation 1780-1880 be, as in Grassington and Greenhow areas, a dominant set of E~-W sub-parallel veins with a few ‘quarter’ veins NW-SE across them.

In the Alston Block the pattern is rectangular with veins NE-SW and NW-SE, with only one or two quarter veins E-W. The veins of one direction, in the Alston Block the NE-SW, and in the Askrigg Block the E-W, are generally dominant and include the

heaviest mineralisation.! So long as mining was mainly controlled by the leasing of ground measured along a particular vein there was a need for laws to regulate procedure at the crossing of two veins which most likely would be worked by different lessees. There was also a tendency to look for leases only along veins of the dominant direction. All this changed when the leasing of large areas of ground became common practice, and it was possible for the same company to follow a cross-vein in either direction from a main vein working.

In these circumstances mine networks evolved around a mainvein level, with side levels following cross-veins which sooner or later led to the next vein in the dominant direction of the general

pattern. Towards the end of the eighteenth century and in the early years of the nineteenth, the mining companies began to drive levels

from their main veins at right angles through dead ground, in search for possible parallel veins which may not be seen at the surface. These cross-cuts were a heavy charge on development, but where capital was made available for them they often more than repaid the loss of any ore that might have been gained by following

the chance cross-vein, unless it were a strong one. The new crosscuts could be planned as part of the haulage system of the mine, related also to possible ventilation circuits, and could be cut straight instead of following the irregularities of strings and cross-veins. The development of cross-cuts led to two rationalisations in the larger leases. Where several mines in an area had some veins in

common or their workings were approaching similar areas, 1t was possible to link them by a cross-cut so designed as to allow bouse from various vein workings to be brought to day at a common-level mouth where a single larger dressing floor could be built to deal with the whole produce. In earlier stages of mining the difficulty of securing an adequate water supply had sometimes meant. that roughly dressed ore had to be carried long journeys over the hills by 1'W. Wallace. The Laws which regulate the Deposition of Lead in Veins (London 1861).

203

Lead Mining in the Pennines

poor and difficult tracks, to a dressing floor with a better water supply. With the use of rails and horse-drawn waggons, transport was now straight-forward underground, through the network of levels and cross-cuts, and a considerable saving of time and transport cost was achieved. A good example of this development can be seen in the Old

Gang mine group in Swaledale (fig. 3). The Old Gang workings were mainly along the Old Rake (or Merryfield) vein and the Friarfold vein, and were reached by several whim shafts after the

hushing and open cast had reached their limits of depth. About 1780 or 1785 a new approach was made by the Force level, later called the Hard level, begun while the mines were being worked directly by the proprietor, Lord Pomfret.! This level starts at a point in Hard Level Gill at about 1,350 ft O.D. and drives first NNW, then nearly N to cut the Old Rake vein at 575 fathoms. Before 1811 the vein had been worked to the west as far as the Level Whim

shaft at 195 fathoms, and a cross-cut had reached the North Rake vein and was later carried forward towards the Friarfold vein. The line of the Hard level was continued northward by Pedley’s Cross-cut, which eventually reached the Friarfold Old Sun vein. From Gunnerside Gill 24 miles to the west, and from the same altitude as the Hard level, Bunting, sometimes called Bunton,

level was driven to the Old Rake vein and also entered into the Friarfold vein, as this comes to a junction with Old Rake a few

score fathoms west of Bunting level. Working proceeded in both veins, but the Bunting level was driven at a slight inclination which carried it above the Hard level workings in Old Rake. The output from the Bunting level was very great and was dressed at the level

mouth and then was carried over the moors to Old Gang floors and smelt mill, a rough and expensive journey. In 1828, however, a 4 fathom sump from Bunting level joined it with Hard level horse tramway, and for the rest of its working life Bunting ore from many

veins was carried by tram to the sump hoppers and then trammed out of Hard level directly on to the main dressing floor.4 1 The level when started as Force level proved hard to drive, costing {10 a fathom including arching but excluding air shafts; its name was therefore changed to Hard level. D.H. MSS. LA 3; D.H. MSS. S.C.7. 2 D.H. MSS. LA 1; Plan D.H. MSS. P/O.G.1. 3 D.H. MSS. RD 13. 4D.H. MSS. RD 13; Plan D.H. MSS. P/GO 1.

204

The Age of Mechanisation 1780-1880

In 1814 the Aldersons, who had leased the Old Gang mine in 1811, appointed Frederick Hall, of Easterby, Hall and Company,

as their manager.! The terms of the lease committed the Aldersons

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