New Providence lead mine and ore works, 350m south of Moor End, north west of Kettlewell

Reasons for Designation

Approximately 10,000 lead industry sites are estimated to survive in England, spanning nearly three millennia of mining history from the later Bronze Age (c.1000 BC) until the present day, though before the Roman period it is likely to have been on a small scale. Two hundred and fifty one lead industry sites, representing approximately 2.5% of the estimated national archaeological resource for the industry, have been identified as being of national importance. This selection of nationally important monuments, compiled and assessed through a comprehensive survey of the lead industry, is designed to represent the industry's chronological depth, technological breadth and regional diversity. Nucleated lead mines are a prominent type of field monument produced by lead mining. They consist of a range of features grouped around the adits and/or shafts of a mine. The simplest examples contain merely a shaft or adit with associated spoil tip, but more complex and (in general) later examples may include remains of engine houses for pumping and/or winding from shafts, housing, lodging shops and offices, powder houses for storing gunpowder, power transmission features such as wheel pits, dams and leats. The majority of nucleated lead mines also included ore works, where the mixture of ore and waste rock extracted from the ground was separated ('dressed') to form a smeltable concentrate. The range of processes used can be summarised as: picking out of clean lumps of ore and waste; breaking down of lumps to smaller sizes (either by manual hammering or mechanical crushing); sorting of broken material by size; separation of gravel-sized material by shaking on a sieve in a tub of water ('jigging'); and separation of finer material by washing away the lighter waste in a current of water ('buddling'). The field remains of ore works vary widely and include the remains of crushing devices, separating structures and tanks, tips of distinctive waste from the various processes, together with associated water supply and power installations, such as wheel pits and, more rarely, steam engine houses. The majority of nucleated lead mines with ore works are of 18th to 20th century date, earlier mining being normally by rake or hush and including scattered ore dressing features (a 'hush' is a gully or ravine partly excavated by use of a controlled torrent of water to reveal or exploit a vein of mineral ore). Nucleated lead mines often illustrate the great advances in industrial technology associated with the period known as the Industrial Revolution and, sometimes, also inform an understanding of the great changes in social conditions which accompanied it. Because of the greatly increased scale of working associated with nucleated mining such features can be a major component of many upland landscapes. It is estimated that several thousand sites exist, the majority being small mines of limited importance, although the important early remains of many larger mines have often been greatly modified or destroyed by continued working or by modern reworking. A sample of the better preserved sites, illustrating the regional, chronological and technological range of the class, is considered to merit protection.

New Providence Mine retains features of both a nucleated mine with ore works and of a concentration of technologically more primative hush and shallow shaft workings. The monument is a good example of a typical small lead mine which intensified its operations over time as the workings developed. The ore works are particularly well preserved with largely intact stone built structures and tips of dressing wastes allowing the identification of different ore preparation processes. A hush is a gully in which controlled torrents of water were used to remove overburden and waste either to aid exploitation of a vein or to prospect for new veins. Known from documentary evidence from the Roman period on the continent, and from the 16th century in England, they are a component of many Pennine mines, with their networks of associated dams and other water management features. The low earthworks and spreads of waste both around and within the hushes at New Providence are considered to have resulted from the small scale, hand processing of ore before the construction of the ore works, and provide an important component of the monument. The hushes are good examples of northern English small scale surface workings. The network of small dams and drainage channels are also well preserved, and form an integral part of the monument. The monument has free public access and is an educational resource and public amenity.

Details

The monument, which is within two areas of protection, includes the earthworks of rake and shallow lead hush workings with associated water management features, together with the ruins of an ore works and a series of shafts with large spoilheaps. It lies adjacent to the edge of a limestone plateau within enclosed sheep pasture, and forms a focus of activity in a more extensive lead mining landscape. The monument contains two east-west workings, each including a hush (man made gully) up to 10m wide and 4m deep with a number of associated shafts forming a band of workings up to 40m wide. Either side of the gullies, and in some places within them, there are low earthworks and spreads of waste. These are considered to be the remains of small scale ore processing, carried out by hand before the construction of the ore works to the north. At the west (uphill) end there are a series of small dams and channels surviving as earthworks up to 0.5m high. These workings are thought to have been started around 1820 by men from Old Providence Mine in nearby Dowber Gill. It is known that the first parcel of ore from the workings was sent to Starbotton smeltmill in 1821, and by 1858 output was about 40 tons a year. To the north of the northern hush there are a number of additional shafts with larger surrounding spoil heaps up to 30m in diameter which are also included within the scheduling. One of these shafts (thought to be the shaft at NGR SD 95047272) is the main shaft sunk before 1859 under the name of New Providence Mine. By this date the ore works and a waterwheel for shaft winding had been built, of which significant and well preserved remains still survive. Ten metres north of the main shaft, is a nearly complete, rubble filled wheelpit, c.5m by 2m, with a 2m by 3m setting for a winding drum on its west side. This was supplied by a c.50 by 20m reservoir (which is marked on the 1:10,000 map) c.20m to the west. The main shaft is surrounded by an extensive spread of mine spoil which is revetted on the north side by a 2m high wall which includes two well preserved 3m diameter wash kilns (stone built hoppers) which would have held bouse (unprocessed ore). These wash kilns face a level dressing (ore processing) area formed from hand picked and jigger waste (waste produced from hand sorting and coarse sieving in water respectively), a finger tip of which leads north eastwards forming a tub run to a second wheelpit and crushing mill (where rock was crushed to reduce it to gravel). This second wheelpit is larger (c.8m by 3m) than the example uphill c.60m to the south west, and drove a crushing mill of Cornish design using two rollers. This crushing machinery is thought to have been removed after the mine's closure in 1877. Immediately to the south of this wheelpit there is a revetted area forming a second dressing floor, downhill from which there is an extensive spread of jigger and handpicked waste. Twenty metres south of the crusher are the ruins of a three roomed building of c.10m by 4m, surviving to a maximum height of 1.2m with rubble built rendered walls. The west room has a small fire place; the east room has the remains of a small smithing hearth; and the central room (which gives sole access to the other two rooms) has a 2m wide doorway facing north. Downhill, and to the east of the ore works, there is a single collapsed level with an intact portal. This is thought to be the remains of Charlton Level which was c.485m long by 1870, but was never completed. It was intended to allow drainage of the main shaft workings. The mine closed in 1877 because of falling lead prices (not because of exhaustion) after being worked from 1869 by the Wharfedale Mining Company. The drystone walls and all modern fencing are excluded from the scheduling, but the ground beneath them is included.

MAP EXTRACT The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

29003

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Raistrick, A, Lead Mining in the Mid Pennines, (1973), 136

End of official list entry

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