Monument record MDR2153 - Arbourseats Veins and Sough and Nay Green Mine, Tansley Dale, Wardlow and Litton

Vein working with level entrance shafts. Good example of vein in position, easy to preserve. (1) The area includes Wardlow Sough, which was measuring ore in 1729. One level extends for 2700ft along the Wardlow Sough Vein. Also the Neptune Mine (Nay Green Mine) worked in the early 1700's. Includes a vast area, completely untouched, with a large washing complex in the valley bottom and two veins running eastwards. (2). The area of Arbourseats Veins and Sough, Wardlow Sough, and Nay Green Mine has been included in an inventory of regionally and nationally important lead mining sites. It includes small to moderate sized veins with hillocks and opencuts (some deep), together with several small belland yards, ruined coes, levels and sleepered shafts. At the top of Tansley Dale there is a gin circle wall adjacent to a run-in shaft, with a coe built later, overlying the horse walk. A small belland yard part-way down Tansley Dale has a flat-topped dressing floor hillock with a ruined coe, a blocked shaft, a water storage pond and a possible small rectangular ore-dressing pit. In the main valley bottom there are rare large Nay Green washing ponds fed by a stone-lined goit from Wardlow Sough (currently blocked) Nearby is Nay Green (Neptune) Mine. On the other side of the valley there is a run-in sough tail and opencuts above, leading to the sough, following the main Arbourseats Vein. The spoil from these workings part-blocks the valley bottom and creates a dam for the washing ponds. (4) These mines are all situated within Litton Liberty. During the 17th century, many miners who resided at Litton worked at mines in Tideswell and Hucklow liberties, and there are very few references to actual mines in Litton. There was a dispute at Backdale Side Rake in 1630; Backdale is untraced, but it may have been an earlier name for Tansley Dale. The earliest known documentary reference at present is from 1834, when it was stated that Arbour Seats Mine had been worked to a depth of 40 fathoms. There is little documentary evidence about the Harbourseats Vein and nothing about the sough. The sough tail has run-in, but a walled channel feeds into water storage dams formerly used in ore washing operations. Access into the mine and sough is by an open stope a little higher up the hill. Square section iron rails laid along the sole of the sough probably date from the 1830s to 1850s. A document written in 1856 observed that Arbourseats had been worked by a Company was unremunerative. Nay Green Mine, which included Weather Slack Vein, Bramwell Scrin and two un-named veins, is first known from 1732 when there was a dispute about 'Sellors Grove on Knea Green'. Output appears to have been erratic, typically that arising from a small-medium mining venture. Neptune Level (a recent name) was driven into one of the two un-named veins. Small square-section iron rails remain in situ, confirming its function as a haulage level. The mine was probably worked in the period 1840s-1850s, contemporary with Harbourseats Mine and Sough. (5) The mining complex was scheduled in March 2013. The scheduled area comprises a series of earthworks, buried deposits and standing features which include belland yard walls, ruined coes, open cuts, dressing floors, ponds, shafts, water channels and soughs. See the scheduling record for a full description. (6)