A “Natural History” visit to a Lead Mine? Well, nothing can be more “Natural” than rock, so a sunny Saturday saw 12 of us being kitted up with helmets and lights by our leaders, Richard Clayton, who organised the trip for us, and his colleague Shirley.
Gillfield Mine was one of the numerous (possibly countless) mines / pits / shafts / levels / adits on Greenhow all searching for lead from Roman times or even earlier. The Abbeys of Bylands and Fountains had mines there from the 12th Century right up to the dissolution in the 16th Century. Mining continued into the middle of the 18th century when levels were driven into the side of the hills to intercept the ore-carrying veins. And one such was Gillfield Level, begun in 1782. Gradually, the depleted reserves, geological and economic factors brought an end to mining, save for some re-working for Fluorspar in the 1930s. Leeds University Department of Mining and Mineral Engineering then made the mine safe and used it for teaching. When that Department closed the Greenhow Local History Club obtained a lease and thanks to their efforts and ongoing preservation work now make this the only accessible underground workings on Greenhow. A precious heritage.
Back to the trip …soon we were walking along the 300m of dead straight passage, passing what might be a “witch’s mark” carved into the side of the passage (to ward off evil spririts), along with a date 178? .
The passage is driven through beds of sandstones and shales and eventually limestones intermingled with various minerals – black manganese, ochre iron oxides, white calcites, sparkling galena (lead sulphide), grey glacial infill, and purple fluorspar.
And so to the workings, tall rifts where the miners had climbed higher and higher excavating the ore to be trundled out the mine on trucks.
But we couldn’t leave without finding something alive… a white mass of mycelium radiating from some wooden planks, and also vertical white fruiting bodies reminiscent of candle-snuff fungus emerging from a shovel handle.
Then back, with the daylight drawing us out towards the surface.
A fascinating trip. Thanks again to our leaders and to all those people who spend Thursday nights shovelling mud, moving rocks, heaving timbers … to keep the mine open and safe for visitors.
Jack Upsall
