The next mining area along the North Pennine escarpment from the previous posts (Long Fell, Scordale, Dufton & Threlkeld Side, Silverband, Knapside & Foxfold).
As usual there were no pictures of anything underground, and in this case there was very little.
Nevertheless there were a few possibilities to check, shown as red dots on the map below.
History. Lead was apparently being extracted in the 1700s, even though the mineral veins here contain mostly barytes.
However once some uses had been found for barytes the area was worked by The Hedworth Barium Company in the early 1900s followed by Laporte, who had interests in several of the nearby barytes mines.
Laporte trucked the crude material from Hartside to the Silverband processing plant about 5 miles south, stopping after 1946 when a large deposit of barytes was discovered at Silverband so Hartside was no longer needed.
Starting at the top, this is one of the blocked coal levels (black dots on the map).
There’s a lot of coal in these parts with the main Hartside colliery situated over the brow of the hill - nothing to see there except shafts and some soggy coal outcrops on a stream.
Moving down the gully there’s an entrance but it it collapses immediately surrounded by rocks decorated with barytes.
Further down past an air tank there’s another entrance (Harrison’s Level) which is also blocked.
On the other side of the stream is the beginning of an incline (yellow dashed line on the map) which took material up to a tramway, with rails and wire rope lying around or sticking out of waste heaps.
The incline is on the right in the picture below with another stone arched level, also collapsed, just visible in the grass on the left.
Some of the barytes on the waste heaps has traces of lead and copper.
Carrying on downhill we come to the only explorable level, above the remains of what may be an aerial ropeway pylon.
This one follows an obvious vein immediately above the entrance, but soon reduces to a rocky crawl under a roof of hacked barytes.
The entrances to two other veins (Daffenside and Rowton Gill) were completely blocked…
…although one had a winch, presumably driven by a tractor or similar.
Now nearing the bottom of the hill I checked out a couple of limekilns situated below quarries where the sheep like to hang out.
Limekilns are not exactly ‘explorable’ but they were important enough in their day, presumably using the local coal, said to be of rather low quality.
These two have names, Busk and Cocklock.
View over the charging hole of the Cocklock kiln with the Lakes in the distance.
As usual there were no pictures of anything underground, and in this case there was very little.
Nevertheless there were a few possibilities to check, shown as red dots on the map below.
History. Lead was apparently being extracted in the 1700s, even though the mineral veins here contain mostly barytes.
However once some uses had been found for barytes the area was worked by The Hedworth Barium Company in the early 1900s followed by Laporte, who had interests in several of the nearby barytes mines.
Laporte trucked the crude material from Hartside to the Silverband processing plant about 5 miles south, stopping after 1946 when a large deposit of barytes was discovered at Silverband so Hartside was no longer needed.
Starting at the top, this is one of the blocked coal levels (black dots on the map).
There’s a lot of coal in these parts with the main Hartside colliery situated over the brow of the hill - nothing to see there except shafts and some soggy coal outcrops on a stream.
Moving down the gully there’s an entrance but it it collapses immediately surrounded by rocks decorated with barytes.
Further down past an air tank there’s another entrance (Harrison’s Level) which is also blocked.
On the other side of the stream is the beginning of an incline (yellow dashed line on the map) which took material up to a tramway, with rails and wire rope lying around or sticking out of waste heaps.
The incline is on the right in the picture below with another stone arched level, also collapsed, just visible in the grass on the left.
Some of the barytes on the waste heaps has traces of lead and copper.
Carrying on downhill we come to the only explorable level, above the remains of what may be an aerial ropeway pylon.
This one follows an obvious vein immediately above the entrance, but soon reduces to a rocky crawl under a roof of hacked barytes.
The entrances to two other veins (Daffenside and Rowton Gill) were completely blocked…
…although one had a winch, presumably driven by a tractor or similar.
Now nearing the bottom of the hill I checked out a couple of limekilns situated below quarries where the sheep like to hang out.
Limekilns are not exactly ‘explorable’ but they were important enough in their day, presumably using the local coal, said to be of rather low quality.
These two have names, Busk and Cocklock.
View over the charging hole of the Cocklock kiln with the Lakes in the distance.
