Monument record MDR3977 - Little Pasture Mine, near Eyam Edge, Eyam

'Little Pasture Mine (Lead)' is shown on the 1st ed. 25" Ordnance Survey map of c. 1880, indicating that it may still have been in use at that time. Three buildings are depicted, as are two gin or crushing circles and two shafts. The shafts are not named as such, but are named on the 2nd edition, by which time the lead mine is shown as disused. (1, 2) There is a reckoning house and a crushing wheel at Little Pasture Mine. The reckoning house is mentioned in an account of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. (3) In about 1711 it was realised that the Hucklow Edge Vein, that had been worked in the upper limestones to the west of Great Hucklow and that disappeared beneath the overlying Edale Shales, ranged in a general eastwardly direction, running approximately parallel with the scarp face of Eyam. Almost simultaneously several mines, one of which was Little Pasture mine, which had previously worked other veins lying south of the Hucklow Edge vein, began cutting shale-gates northwardly to locate the extension of the main vein. The vein was extremely rich and as a result, disputes between neighbouring mines regarding ownership of parts of the vein were fairly common. One such dispute between the partners of the Little Pasture mine and the Miners Engine mine lasted for over 50 years without being successfully resolved. (4) Little Pasture Mine is a relatively intact moderate-sized mine complex within a belland yard and is approximately I hectare in extent. There are two shafts on shale hillocks. The main one has a gin circle and was presumably also a dressing floor. On a lower terrace there is a crushing wheel and a sunken circular crushing area, now only partly defined with no surface sign of the crushing track. Nearby to the east is a well preserved mine reckoning house (used a s a field barn). Below the crushing circle here is a further terrace with a short stretch of retaining wall which may be a third ore-dressing area. It is approached from the north-west by a terraced track. Further from the mine complex there are remains of a large but heavily reworked waste hillock. The site is included in an inventory of regionally and nationally important lead mining sites in the Peak District. (5) Little Pasture mine was known originally as 'Mr. Ashton's Haycliffe', with ownership established in April 1715. There appears to have been a single sough associated with the mine, which drained into troughs in 'Well-field'. In about 1720-21 a shale gate was driven northwards from the mine and discovered the continuation of the Miners Engine Break Vein (during the great lawsuits of the 1740s - 1750s it was sometimes considered to be Hucklow Edge Vein). From 1721 to 1724 profits amounted to a staggering £6,976. The mine became well-known nationally during the Lisbon earthwork of November 1755 when the reckoning house at Little Pasture was slightly damaged. The two-storey building still standing at the mine is almost certainly the original reckoning house. (6)