Blog · Heritage Yorkshire Dales
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The Yorkshire Dales look ancient and unchanging. The dry stone walls, the field barns, the villages gathered in their valley shelter — it is easy to assume that this landscape has been essentially static for centuries. It has not. For two hundred years, from the mid-17th to the mid-19th century, the moors above Swaledale, Wharfedale and Wensleydale were among the most intensively mined landscapes in Britain, with thousands of workers extracting lead ore from the veins running through the limestone, smelting it in water-powered mills and transporting it on pack horses to the markets at Skipton and Barnard Castle.
The lead mining landscape has not disappeared. It is still there, on the moors above the valleys, waiting to be read by anyone who knows what they are looking at.
Lead ore (galena — lead sulphide, PbS) occurs in veins running through the limestone of the Dales in roughly north–south directions, associated with other minerals including zinc ore (sphalerite), fluorspar and calcite. The veins were formed by mineralised groundwater moving through faults and fractures in the rock in the Permian and Triassic periods, approximately 250 million years ago.
The ore was extracted by driving horizontal tunnels (levels) into the hillside along the veins, and by sinking shafts from the surface. In the earlier periods, the more violent technique of hushing — releasing large volumes of stored water to strip the surface overburden and expose the ore veins — was used extensively, leaving the characteristic raked trenches (hushes) that are one of the most distinctive features of the Dales lead mining landscape.
Swaledale — the most extensively mined dale. The moors above Gunnerside, Keld and Arkengarthdale are marked by hushes, level entrances, spoil heaps and the ruins of smelt mills and miners' cottages. The Swaledale Museum in Reeth has the best collection of lead mining material in the Dales.
The mining country has its stories too, from the corpse road that carried the dead of upper Swaledale to Grinton to the landlady of Tan Hill Inn, who is said never to have left: see ghost stories and legends of the Yorkshire Dales.
Old Gang Smelting Mills, Swaledale — the ruins of the Old Gang smelt mill complex above Gunnerside Gill are the most substantial lead mining remains in the Dales — extensive stone walls, peat stores and flue systems surviving in remarkable condition on the open moor.
Wharfedale — the Duke's New Road above Grassington follows an old mining track; the moors on both sides are marked by shafts, hushes and spoil heaps. The Linton Falls smelt mill ruin near Grassington is accessible.
At the height of the industry (approximately 1750–1850) the lead mining villages of the upper dales had substantial populations of miners who combined part-time farming (the hay meadows and cattle pastures were maintained by mining families) with underground work. The lead miner's life was hard — the dust caused silicosis, the work was dangerous and the economics fluctuated wildly with the price of lead.
The industry collapsed in the second half of the 19th century as cheap imported lead from Spain and Australia undercut the Dales ore. The villages emptied. The moors were left to regenerate over the spoil heaps. The walls, levels and hushes remained.
The demographic impact was significant. The 1861 census records substantial populations in villages like Muker, Gunnerside and Keld; the 1891 census shows dramatic reductions as workers and their families emigrated to the coalfields, to Canada and to Australia. Many Dales families in North America and Australia today are descended from lead mining emigrants of this period.
The lead mining landscape of Swaledale and Wharfedale can be explored in depth on a bespoke Yorkshire Dales tour.