Another old mine up a valley in the Lake District.
This one is very small, last worked in the 1870s, with the output for one year (1854) recorded as 4.5 tonnes of smelted lead.
I haven’t found any underground pictures but there are two short levels (red dots) with a ‘graphite trial’ (pink dot) nearby.
Heading up the valley from Mungrisdale.
Approaching the mining area, an opencut section can be seen just to the left of centre with a streak of waste below.
At the base of the crag is ruin with the remains of a smithy and some relatively recent graffiti.
Up to the first level.
Further up is the opencut with another short level at the top - mist had rolled in temporarily at this stage.
The level follows cream coloured veins over a pile of waste rock until the original floor reappears after some timbers.
As in the previous level there were some copper (II) streaks below a barytes vein.
The end and out.
In the levels and on the waste tips are quartz, a lot of barytes (some pinkish), and galena.
Next over to the ‘graphite trial’ which is only about 10 yards long, apparently following a grubby quartz vein visible on the right hand side of the entrance.
Cracking open a few rocks of smoky quartz revealed inclusions of soft, blackish and slightly iridescent material.
At first sight it looks like lead ore but it’s too lamellar and flakey to be galena.
More recent investigations have concluded that while there may have been some genuine graphite in the main levels the stuff I found here is probably black mica which is quite common.
You have to go south to Borrowdale for a genuine graphite mine.
The view back down the valley, with the north pennines in the far distance.
This one is very small, last worked in the 1870s, with the output for one year (1854) recorded as 4.5 tonnes of smelted lead.
I haven’t found any underground pictures but there are two short levels (red dots) with a ‘graphite trial’ (pink dot) nearby.
Heading up the valley from Mungrisdale.
Approaching the mining area, an opencut section can be seen just to the left of centre with a streak of waste below.
At the base of the crag is ruin with the remains of a smithy and some relatively recent graffiti.
Up to the first level.
Further up is the opencut with another short level at the top - mist had rolled in temporarily at this stage.
The level follows cream coloured veins over a pile of waste rock until the original floor reappears after some timbers.
As in the previous level there were some copper (II) streaks below a barytes vein.
The end and out.
In the levels and on the waste tips are quartz, a lot of barytes (some pinkish), and galena.
Next over to the ‘graphite trial’ which is only about 10 yards long, apparently following a grubby quartz vein visible on the right hand side of the entrance.
Cracking open a few rocks of smoky quartz revealed inclusions of soft, blackish and slightly iridescent material.
At first sight it looks like lead ore but it’s too lamellar and flakey to be galena.
More recent investigations have concluded that while there may have been some genuine graphite in the main levels the stuff I found here is probably black mica which is quite common.
You have to go south to Borrowdale for a genuine graphite mine.
The view back down the valley, with the north pennines in the far distance.
