Report - Mines 51 - Ruthwaite and Eagle Crag Lead Mines (Cumbria, 2023)

[urbanchemist]

A couple of old lead mines in the Grisedale Valley near Ullswater.

As usual it wasn’t clear if there was much underground to explore here, so the only thing to do was to go and look.

The place is easy to get to, following one of the numerous paths which lead up to Helvellyn and neighbouring peaks.

The Eagle Crag mine is the red line in the picture below as a series of open workings and levels running up the mountain with two associated trail levels (red dots) nearby.
Ruthwaite is slightly further up the valley (pink dots).
Both mines were probably worked together, starting in Elizabethan times or earlier, finishing sometime before 1880.

The spoil heaps and the scar down the middle of Eagle Crag are very obvious on the approach.

Starting with Ruthwaite, the main level is beside a stream not far from a climbing lodge.
It wiggles in for a bit - the length is recorded as 150 yards - apparently following a quartz vein.
The further reaches look to be more more recent, with shot holes.

There is a second, very short, level nearby with some open scrapings above - nothing to see so here’s a sheep’s head instead.

The lower pink dot was an attempt to find a continuation of the Ruthwaite vein on the other side of the valley.
There is a spoil heap at the map location, in the middle of the picture below, but no obvious portal in the boggy area above.

Moving down to the main Eagle Crag mine the lower red dot (St Sunday crosscut) was also an attempt to find more lead on the other side of the valley.
The level was apparently driven some distance without finding anything - these days it dies almost immediately.

The other red dot is the Nethermostcove Beck Level, which targeted a branch of the main Eagle Crag vein.
This was the most entertaining and longest bit of underground in the area, and a pleasant wade, kinking left part way in.

continued

 

[urbanchemist]

Looking up the main Eagle Crag vein from where it meets Grisedale Beck.

Above here are a number of entrances, but most of them have collapsed.
The first explorable one was rather short - you can almost see the end from the portal.

The next one apparently went some distance in 1990 but now ends almost immediately in a collapse.
Nearby is a ruin with some chunks of iron and a small dressing floor.

Up past another ruin and then looking back down the line of the vein showing the offset of the St Sunday crosscut (red arrow).

The levels above here all seemed to be blocked although I may have missed some since I had to detour round a crag to avoid a steep section.
Above them is another dressing floor.

View up the valley with the main Ruthwaite Level (red arrow).

At the top are open workings and more ruins.

On the way up I picked up some samples from the waste heaps, mainly quartz in various stages of crystallinity.
Some of it has inclusions of greenish rock - I don’t know if this contains copper but there’s definitely some copper around.

Small amounts of galena can be found on the surface if you look for them, and plenty more by cracking open likely looking chunks.

Finally the route up to Nethermost Pike, with Helvellyn off to the right somewhere in the clouds.

So not a huge amount of underground to explore in this one.
It’s somewhat like the Dale Head copper mines - an attraction up a long valley that could be incorporated into a circular walk.

 

[The Lone Ranger]

Looks a grand day out, mines are nicely covered.
I do like the Lakeland mines

 

[jezzyboo]

Another set of great snaps very well documented

 

[HughieD]

A very detailed report and enjoyable read. That you @urbanchemist

 

[Calamity Jane]

Great read. Lovely images too. Mining fascinates me.

 

[thegreentiger]

Thank you. I'm 85, a country boy and a lifelong explorer, now stuck in London and in a wheelchair; you have no idea how much those photos meant to me, thank you.