Summary : Lead mining commenced at Greenside during the mid/late 17th century at the area around High Horse Level when the earliest working of the material would have been by hand-picking directly onto the vein. The location of these earlier workings is now dominated by a line of massive collapses caused by subsidence of the underground workings which inturn destroyed these earlier workings. Those workings to have survived include the High Horse adit, Gillgowar's adit which opened in 1822, a trial adit and a hush. Other surviving features include two waste heaps, traces of an extensive water management system, a tramway, and the remains of four buildings including a lodging house and smithy. The majority of these surviving features date from c1825 when the Greenside Mining Syndicate took over mining operations and opened the High Horse Level adit and developed a crushing and washing mill on the site of the original washings on the Swart Beck dressing floor. The dressing floor was linked to the High Horse Level workings by a tramway and several tracks. The main processing machinery occupied the east bank of the beck and remains of various structures survive including a crushing mill and a nearby buddle. Waste dumps, leats, a trackway, a fine processing area, settling tanks and a dam also survive on the dressing floor. On the west side of the beck are the remains of slime pits or settling tanks, a trackway and the remains of a building thought to have been a lodging house for the dressing floor workers or a tackle shop for packhorses. |
More information : (NY 359 180) Old Lead Mine (NAT) (1a)
Full history and description with plans, photographs, sections of underground and surface workings (1b-1d).
NY 359 180; High Horse Level and surrounding area. It is suggested that the Greenside Vein was discovered and exploited as early as the mid-17th century; during the earliest period of working all the material would have been hand picked directly onto the vein and all dressing and washing would be by hand. Tyler (1d) suggests that by c.1825, when the Greenside Mining Syndicate took over operations, four levels had been driven, to be followed, post c.1825, by Gilgowar's and High Horse, a total of six. Shaw (1c), on the other hand, indicates only four levels, all pre-1825, were operated. Whatever the case the only survivors are the adit of High Horse itself at NY 3581 1826, Gilgowar's at NY 3586 1831, and a possible trial adit at NY 3584 1836; the remainder seem to have been lost in a series of massive collapses extending N-S down the side of Green Side mountain. In the same area there is a hush, several small reservoirs, a number of pit-head buildings, a series of leats and quantities of waste heaps, the nature of which indicates that washing and dressing took place here. After c.1825 a crushing and washing mill (the Upper Swart Beck dressing floor) was erected downstream at NY 359 179; it was connected to the High Horse Level by a tramway and trackways, and was powered by water from the newly created Top Dam at NY 356 181. The dressed ore, which had formerly been transported westward over Sticks Pass, now was carried eastward to Glenridding by an engineered cart road zig-zagging down the hill. Most of the structures of the dressing floor are covered with fine waste, but the slight remains of a crushing mill, with part of its machinery still in situ, and a buddle can be seen. The bed of the tramway and the old tracks are discernible as is a system of leats both for powering the mill and for washing; Top Dam is breached. The landscape is dominated by extensive waste heaps. The area around High Horse Level was surveyed at 1:1000 by RCHME Newcastle and the dressing floor at 1:500; a full description of the surface remains accompanies the plans, and all are held in the NMR archive (1).
Scheduled. (3)
Listed. (4) |