Monument record MDR3169 - Oxclose lead mine, Snitterton Road, Snitterton, South Darley

Oxclose Mine is an old lead mine complex entered via a shaft close to Leawood Cottage. It is of regional recreational importance to cavers and is also of interest to mining historians and minerologists. (1) This is an 18th century mine but reworked in the 1940s and 1950s by Derbyshire Stone (Matlock Mines). It gives access to a large number of pipe and vein workings on the north slope of Masson, and is of geological and historical interest. (2) At the Oxclose Mines there are the lower walls of a Newcomen engine house and a nearby cinder heap. Underground features at Oxclose Mine include extensive pipe workings, a fine coffin level sough known as the Crowholt Level, and a 20th century inclined tramway. There are many inscriptions, the earliest dating to 1623. Oxclose Mines are documented as working in the 1530s. The site has surface evidence for the relative age of mining and medieval strip lynchets/ridge and furrow [see also Oxclose, Lee Wood, Lee Close, and Noon Nick Lead Mines SMR 12762]. (5)