Monument record MDR3179 - Extensive lead mining remains, Middleton Moor, Middleton

An extensive area of lead mine shafts and waste heaps has been identified from aerial photographs taken in 1996, with stone field walls riding over the mining remains in a number of places. (1) In this area there are a large number of small mines on many small veins that have survived because the hillocks are largely of limestone rather than gangue mineral. At surface there are a large number of shafts with associated hillocks, small dressing floors and ruined coes. On the upper parts of the slope the mines become larger with large flat-topped hillocks/dressing floors. There are several engine/climbing shafts, some walled out, ruined coes and an arched level or high level sough. One hillock has a walled gin circle on an embanked hillock and several others have flat areas large enough to have contained further examples. At Welshmans Venture Mine there is a well-preserved large coe, an engine shaft and the overgrown site of a gin. At Bondog Hole Maine [SMR 28355] there is a terraced and walled belland yard and dressing floor. Workings extending to the east have a further two ruined coes. On the slopes of the Via Gellia below the main complex, some workings continue and include two levels with coes at Merry Tom and two levels at Thumper Sitch, the upper one with a coe. At all there are underground workings similar to those lower down the Via Gellia, including recently discovered wooden rails at Merry Tom. (2)