Located up a valley a few miles north of Scoredale, these mines are rather similar to the ones there, Report - - Scordale Lead Mines (Cumbria, 2020-2022) | Mines and Quarries.
As usual there were no pictures of anything, so I got some old mine plans and went for a couple of walks to see what was open.
History. The mines were fairly well developed by 1700 and were operated by the London Lead Company (LLC) from 1823 - 1873, raising many thousand of tonnes of ore.
Despite the name, the LLC were locally based at that stage, funding much of the infrastructure and amenities of Dufton village which lies at the entrance to the valley.
Barytes was produced in the late 1800s when it became worth recovering, with further reprocessing of the waste heaps in the the 1980s.
View up the valley with Threkeld Side on the left and Dufton on the right.
The most interesting aspect of mines is the geology, so here’s a summary of this valley from the very useful British Geological Survey website.
Like elsewhere in the North Pennines, minerals were deposited as clumps mostly in the harder limestone and sandstone layers, visible as ridges along the sides.
The ore veins run diagonally NE to SW across the valley, crossing under approximately where the lowest set of limestone bands turn the corner.
Early work was from surface shafts, followed by tunnels (levels/adits) often driven below the limestone in the softer strata.
These levels were ‘cross cuts’ hoping to intersect an ore vein which would then be followed up into the limestone, hacking out as far as possible left and right.
Threlkeld Side. The map above shows a crushing mill, apparently for barytes rather than lead, at the bottom of the valley.
All that’s left are the ruins of a wheel pit and a few rectangular ore bins.
A mineral slide coming down from the first explorable hole, Threlkeld Level - probably early 1800s although not much detail is known about the levels on this side of the valley.
This was actually started in the limestone and doesn’t go far, with remains of wooden sleepers on the floor.
The end and back out.
A rectangular structure near the entrance, probably an ore bin.
The next open hole, D Level, starts off under one of the limestone layers and goes quite a long way.
A pile of debris from a worked out space above.
On through an arch to another pile of debris with more stope above.
On over a partial collapse.
It eventually ends in a small cavern up a mudslide.
Back out.
View of the Dufton side from here showing the banded structure - the ‘mixed sedimentary’ layers on the diagram above are repeating sequences of shales and mudstones, with thin layers of sandstone, limestone and sometimes coal.
The layers all have names, and the miners had their own nicknames which vary from place to place in the Pennines.
continued
As usual there were no pictures of anything, so I got some old mine plans and went for a couple of walks to see what was open.
History. The mines were fairly well developed by 1700 and were operated by the London Lead Company (LLC) from 1823 - 1873, raising many thousand of tonnes of ore.
Despite the name, the LLC were locally based at that stage, funding much of the infrastructure and amenities of Dufton village which lies at the entrance to the valley.
Barytes was produced in the late 1800s when it became worth recovering, with further reprocessing of the waste heaps in the the 1980s.
View up the valley with Threkeld Side on the left and Dufton on the right.
The most interesting aspect of mines is the geology, so here’s a summary of this valley from the very useful British Geological Survey website.
Like elsewhere in the North Pennines, minerals were deposited as clumps mostly in the harder limestone and sandstone layers, visible as ridges along the sides.
The ore veins run diagonally NE to SW across the valley, crossing under approximately where the lowest set of limestone bands turn the corner.
Early work was from surface shafts, followed by tunnels (levels/adits) often driven below the limestone in the softer strata.
These levels were ‘cross cuts’ hoping to intersect an ore vein which would then be followed up into the limestone, hacking out as far as possible left and right.
Threlkeld Side. The map above shows a crushing mill, apparently for barytes rather than lead, at the bottom of the valley.
All that’s left are the ruins of a wheel pit and a few rectangular ore bins.
A mineral slide coming down from the first explorable hole, Threlkeld Level - probably early 1800s although not much detail is known about the levels on this side of the valley.
This was actually started in the limestone and doesn’t go far, with remains of wooden sleepers on the floor.
The end and back out.
A rectangular structure near the entrance, probably an ore bin.
The next open hole, D Level, starts off under one of the limestone layers and goes quite a long way.
A pile of debris from a worked out space above.
On through an arch to another pile of debris with more stope above.
On over a partial collapse.
It eventually ends in a small cavern up a mudslide.
Back out.
View of the Dufton side from here showing the banded structure - the ‘mixed sedimentary’ layers on the diagram above are repeating sequences of shales and mudstones, with thin layers of sandstone, limestone and sometimes coal.
The layers all have names, and the miners had their own nicknames which vary from place to place in the Pennines.
continued
