Monument record MDR6792 - Beans and Bacon, Old Eye, Fiery Dragon and Cod Beat Lead Mines, Bonsall

This is a scheduled monument and includes the earthwork, buried, standing and rock cut remains of Beans and Bacon, Old Eye, Fiery dragon and Cod Beat lead mines defined over three areas. Ore accounts date first mining on Bonsall Moor to 1541 but most of the remains date to the 18th and 19th centuries. Beans and Bacon, Old Eye and Fiery Dragon veins are situated in the western part of SMR 9658, running roughly parallel to each other aligned east to west. Cod Beat scrins align north to south in the centre and eastern part of SMR 9658. Within Beans and Bacon are five coes, one of which is a double coe with the Beans and Bacon founder shaft on one compartment. Studies of the shafts reveals, as at the neighbouring Gorseydale mine, evidence for multiple techniques of rock breakage. Fiery Dragon vein is marked by a series of hillocks and shafts. Just south are four deep conical holes representing open pit extraction of locally enriched ore. Cod Beat mine is represented by deep, straight and vertical sided scrins worked as open cuts. These mines played a central part in the early geological debates concerning the sedimentary or igneous origins of rock. They became a scheduled monument on the 6th January 2000. (1). This is an extensive area of mostly well-preserved hillocks on a series of small veins and pipe workings, with many capped shafts. Surface features include several coes, including a double example, and a dilapidated level entrance at Beans and Bacon Mines. (2).