| Summary : The earthworks and buried remains of a lead mine, located on a limestone knoll on the valley side to the east of Crag Beck. The date when lead mining first began at Ashnott is unknown. Documentary sources indicate that mining was taking place in the general area (the Honour of Clitheroe) around 1300, but the first specific reference lead mining at Ashnott is contained in a lease dated 1538. Lead mining at Ashnott is thought to have ceased shortly after a major depression of lead prices in the 1830s. The surface remains of the lead mine include a group of adits, numerous small rock cut shafts and surrounding spoil heaps, and a variety of opencuts including one large quarried hollow. The main entrance consists of a level on the western side of the limestone knoll 120 metres south east of Ashnott Farm. Underground the mine workings are on four major horizons; the method of working the two upper levels of the mine was by sinking shafts from the surface, whilst in the two lower levels ore appears to have been passed downwards via underground shafts from the upper to the lower level and then removed along a tramway. Thus the surface workings of opencuts and bellpits together with the two upper levels of the mine reached via surface shafts are considered to represent the earlier periods of mining, while the two lower levels, with their more sophisticated system of haulage, are consistent with 18th and 19th century mining operations. Situated 90 metres south of Ashnott, built into the hillslope, is a 18-19th century lime kiln. It is constructed of roughly hewn limestone blocks and has a south facing draw hole. Scheduled. |
More information : Scheduled (1)(2)
The surface remains of the Ashnott mine were surveyed by members of English Heritage’s Assessment Team in August and October 2014 using a combination of aerial and ground-based techniques (3a, 4). The only known previous investigation of the site was that carried out in 1961 when A E Cannell, and other members of the Northern Cavern and Mine Research Group, explored accessible parts of the underground workings. Cannell’s investigations were reported in 1966 (3b), and the plan which he lodged with the society’s archive was published alongside M C Gill’s description of the mine in 1987 (3c).
The earliest references to lead mining in the general area appear in a series of accounts for the Honor of Clitheroe dated 1304-5, although first specific reference to Ashnott is much later, contained in a lease of 1538 which allowed Thomas Proctor to ‘dig, take or mine lead ore’ from Ashnott for a period of three years. The wording of this lease implies that Ashnott was already a known and productive mine. It is marked as a mine on a plan of the waste lands in the parish of Slaidburn dated 1591. The clusters of shafts across the summit of the knoll may have originated in this early period of mining, and developed into the radiating and interconnecting upper levels revealed by Cannell (3a). The roomier lower levels, with the tramway system at the base, were most probably added, as Gill suggested (3c), in the 18th or early 19th centuries. The mine is marked on the 1838 tithe map for Newton Township and again on the 1st edition Ordnance Survey map surveyed in 1847 (3a), although it seems likely that production had ceased in the mid-1830s in consequence of the depreciation in the value of lead (3c).
The pattern of surface workings covers an area of about 2 hectares across the summit and western slopes of the limestone promontory. The earliest phase may be represented by a series of excavated shake-holes on its northern side, adjacent to Ashnott Farm, which were accompanied by processing areas served with water from a dam located on the edge of the plateau above, some 100m to the south. This dam was subsequently replaced by another, located some 100m further to the south-east, which provided water to a larger ore-processing area, surrounded by later shafts, in the centre of the promontory. A large quarried hollow, immediately to the west of the processing area, may indicate the position of a particularly rich deposit of ore, mined from various directions until the ground collapsed or it was decided to expand the operation to a single open-cut. The lower levels were accessed either through the base of this quarry, or via adits along the western side of the knoll. It is possible that the later tramway level also emerged in the quarry and that it was from here that ore was raised to the central processing area (3a). In the latter stages of the mine’s operation a drainage level was driven deep under the knoll from the side of the stream in Ashnott Wood, some 180m north of Ashnott farm. Cannell explored this passage in 1961, by which time the head of the tunnel had collapsed, sealing any connections to the other workings (3b).
The mine was scheduled in 1999 (1) following the recommendations of national assessment of lead mining remains in 1992 (2) which noted the presence of early mining remains at Ashnott and the importance of documentary evidence pointing to its existence in the medieval and early post-medieval period.
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