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December, 1939

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Being a native of the Lake District, and a descendant of a family that has followed local mining for hundreds of years, I have explored most workings in the area. The existence of lead mines at Grasmere was first brought to my knowledge on reading the late Professor W. G. Collingwood's "Elizabethan Keswick." I had never heard of any work being done at Grasmere and no reference is made to such a mine in the Government Memoirs, nor in the late J. Postlethwaite's "Mines and Mining in the Lake District." In so far as I had been connected with the opening out of a small mine at Patterdale, where we found very ancient workings, I was anxious to examine the Grasmere mine, which is of definite date, in the hope that the remains might give some clues as to the period of the former.

The road to the mine, still a good footpath, follows a mountain stream — the hills rising sheer to each side — up to the top of Greenhead Gill, about 1¾ miles N.E. of Grasmere village. It has been carefully graded and, where rocks have been crossed, has been laboriously chiselled out. It seems to have been no more than 4 ft. wide, and would therefore be only a pack-horse track.

The country rocks are the volcanic ashes and lavas of the Borrowdale Series, which are the upper measures of the Lower Silurian rocks in this area. The ore-bearing ground appears to be a crush zone up to 100 ft. in width, and carries small quartz lodes and pockets erratically distributed throughout. It is very similar to two other deposits which lie on the Patterdale side of the mountain. In trend, the zone is East and West, and it can be readily traced for at least half a mile. The ore, which occurs chiefly in the quartz, is a complex galena — blende — pyrites with some manganese and copper and is extremely hard.

The mine workings are all on the west bank of the stream, whilst the mill is on the east side, so that the stream must have been bridged, and the ore wheeled across. All traces of such a bridge have long since disappeared. The ancients apparently discovered the outcrop by the side of the stream, and followed the ore with shallow cuts and two small shafts. These workings range North and South across the deposit, and each is on a separate lode or pocket. The North shaft, which measures 6 by 4 ft., is still 20 ft. deep. It has been cut very square and sinking without the aid of explosives must have been a slow, laborious task in such hard rock. The opencuts are now almost completely grown over, and have not been very large, although adits may have been driven ahead from them for a short distance. The South shaft, opposite the mill site, is now almost filled up, hut appears to have been the main operation and is probably St. Benedict's, which is mentioned in the accounts of the Company of Mines Royal. An interesting feature at this shaft, is the water channel, 12 by 6 in., cut out of the solid rock to drain away the kibbled water into the stream.

It seems peculiar that the old men did not try the zone higher up the mountain where they could have driven adits, instead of shafts, but presumably they followed the ore where it outcropped, and did not bother to explore things unseen. Of course, much more work may have been done than is now discernible, but I should think it very unlikely that any lengthy drive has been made. About 150 yd. below the mill, an adit has been driven North to tap the shaft workings, but although from the appearance of the dumps it has reached the orebearing zone, it has not drained the shafts. The entrance to this level is collapsed.

In layout, the mill seems to have been very similar to the wet stamping mill at Meissen in 1512, which is described by Agricola. The crude ore was apparently wheeled across the stream to the sorting house. Here the rough waste was sorted out, and the larger pieces of ore broken down to probably 1½ or 2 in. with hammers; possibly hand screening and picking followed on the next floor, after which the rest of the ore was fed to the stamps. From the accounts we do not learn how many head there were, but probably not more than three, as the building which housed them measures only 20 by 30 ft. This is now only a low-walled ruin, and nothing of the stamp base and wheel pit can be seen. Near the side of the stream and 6 ft. from the building is a parallel wall which may have carried the outer bearing of the water wheel. Below the building, the ground suggests that small pits have been dug there, and these were no doubt the site of the box buddles.

On the floor above the stamp house is a small pile of low grade ore, a sample of which gave :—

Lead	2.65 per cent.
Zinc	10.65 per cent.
Manganese	Trace.
Copper	0.2 per cent.
Silver	0.3 ozs. per ton.

The ancients apparently worked for the lead and silver, as the copper content was much too low to be of value, and zinc was of no importance in those days. The complex concentrates obtained from the boxes and huddles were carried to Keswick, a distance of 19 miles, for smelting.

From the accounts given in Professor Collingwood's translation we find that during the period 1564-9 the Company spent £962 7s. 11½d. on road construction, driving levels, sinking small shafts and also, no doubt, getting a store of ore ready for the mill. This was built in 1569 and took approximately six months to accomplish, at a cost of £107 7s. 3½d., no little task for a mine carpenter and a handful of men, when one considers that every board and plank was sawn by hand; oak and birch were the timbers used.

The wheel and stamps of that period were chiefly of wood, and we find that the shoes, axles, and other necessary iron parts were provided from the Goldscope mine stores near Keswick at a cost of £32 11s. 2d. Much sackcloth was used by the stamps, presumably for screening, and in 1569 alone 105 ells (131¼ yd.) were purchased at a cost of 6d. per ell.

For some time the mine crew appears to have been nine, made up as follows :—

1	Chief miner who worked on contract.
3	Helpers, paid by the day.
1	Sorter, also on contract.
1	Foreman washer.
3	Washers (one of whom was a woman).

The contract mining was paid at 3d. per kibble of ore raised, the average weight of the kibble is given as approximately 1½ cwt. No account of prices paid for driving or sinking is available for Grasmere, but at Goldscope mine, £5 per fathom for driving seems to have been a common price. Underground helpers received 5d. per day and their work included filling and drawing the ore to surface. The ore was sorted on contract at varying prices from ½d. to 2d. per kibble. At the stamps the foreman washer was paid 8s. per week and his chief assistant got lid, per day. The other male washer received 5d. and the woman 4d. per day respectively.

During the seven weeks ending 1st November, 1569, a total of 35 tons of stamping ore was raised from the mine; this was almost at the rate of a ton a day. Considering this ore was hammered and wedged from hard solid rock and wound to surface by hand, it was a very good piece of work, and gives us some idea of the toil of these men. Of the output of dressed ore we have no records, but judging from the nature of the ore now lying about it was possibly 20 per cent. of the stamping ore treated, which would give one ton per week.

Whether the lodes petered out, or whether the dressing problem was too difficult we do not know, but by 1573 the mine closed down and was never reopened. So far as I am aware, every other lode tried by these old men has been worked since, some of them extensively, and yet, curiously enough, no further trial appears to have been made at Grasmere. The old mining company greatly encouraged prospecting, and we find numerous entries in the accounts of small sums paid to both miners and farmers for finding a new lode. It is doubtful therefore, that any likely occurrence in the Grasmere area has been overlooked.

By comparison, I judged that the ancient workings at Hartsop were of a rather later period, probably early 17th century, as the smelter buildings there are rather more defined, as are also the waterwheel pit and dumps. Unfortunately, I have not had the opportunity to make a thorough search of the Grasmere ruins, which would quite probably yield some ancient tools and other curios.

I am greatly indebted to Professor Collingwood's book for references and accounts, and to the Mining Magazine for permission to reproduce the print of a stamp mill from the translation of Agricola's De Re Metallica, by H. C. and L. H. Hoover.

Drawings and Photographs accompanying the article