Alderley Edge Mines
 Passage in West Mine | |
| Location | |
|---|---|
  Alderley Edge Location in Cheshire | |
| Location | Alderley Edge |
| County | Cheshire |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Production | |
| Products | Copper |
| History | |
| Opened | 1690s |
| Closed | 1920s |
| Owner | |
| Company | National Trust |
The escarpment in Alderley Edge, Cheshire has long been a site of copper mining. Archaeological evidence indicates that mining took place here during Roman times and the Bronze Age, and written records show that mining continued here from the 1690s up to the 1920s. Many of the mines are owned by the National Trust and have been leased from them by the Derbyshire Caving Club which maintains access and continues to explore and search for areas of mining that have been closed for centuries.
History
Pre-history
In the 19th century, crudely shaped stones were found in the bottom of old workings and were thought to be Bronze Age hammer stones.[1] At the same time, a wooden shovel was found and recorded in 1878.[2] Roeder and Graves wrote two papers in the early 20th century [3][4] about the findings in 1878 and added to the theory of Bronze Age working that there was a possibility of Roman mining. The picture was transformed when in 1993 the wooden shovel was rediscovered by English novelist and long-time local citizen Alan Garner. The shovel was carbon-dated to around 1780 BC.[5] Subsequently, the Alderley Edge Landscape Project was set up and excavation around Engine Vein revealed what are believed to be Bronze Age smelting hearths dating to around 2000 BC.[6]
Roman mining was considered unlikely until the finding in 1995 of a 4th-century Roman coin hoard in an abandoned shaft at Engine Vein.[7] This dated the shaft to the 4th century and its regularity and depth suggested that the Romans may well have worked it. An archaeological excavation was undertaken by Derbyshire Caving Club members supervised by the Alderley Edge Landscape Project archaeologists and, at the bottom, timbers were revealed which were carbon-dated to the last century BC. Given that they were heartwood from cut timbers, the dating cannot be precise and the shaft is now believed to be Roman in origin. The passage from the shaft to the Vein was driven from the direction of the shaft and resembles other Roman workings in the United Kingdom, such as at Dolaucothi, and in Germany, such as at Wallerfangen.
Between the Roman working and 1690, there is scant evidence of mining except a reference to "myne holes" (reference in AELPHER archive which is currently inaccessible – May 2007). which cannot be relied on as evidence of mining in progress.
17th and 18th centuries
From 1693 [8] to the mid-19th century, various people are reported to have explored the Edge for copper and work was done at Saddlebole, Stormy Point, Engine Vein and Brinlow.[9] It is likely that the near-surface sections of Wood Mine were investigated during this period. One operator of note was Charles Roe of Macclesfield, who worked the mines from 1758 to 1768 before moving to Anglesey on the discovery of major deposits of copper at Parys Mountain.[10]
Early 19th century
Apart from Roe, the history of working up to 1857 is patchy. The best recorded period was between about 1805 and 1815 when a company of local men including a Derbyshire miner, James Ashton, tried to exploit the mines for lead. During the course of their work, they identified the presence of cobalt which was in demand during the Napoleonic blockade of supplies (Bakewell, 1811). Evidence in the field points to the working of a series of mines on a north-south fault running from Saddlebole to Findlow Hill Wood. Some parts of Engine Vein and possibly West Mine appear to have been excavated at this time. The work ended when the price of cobalt fell. The leases for the period tell the story for Ashton who sacrificed his salary for his share in the company, but even lost this when the company called for more capital than he could provide – and yet he was the man down the mine doing the work (Anon, 1808).
Late 19th century
In 1857, a Cornish man, James Michell, started work at West Mine and moved on in the 1860s to Wood Mine and Engine Vein. His company lasted 21 years (the length of the lease) although Michell died in an accident in the mines in 1862. During this working period, nearly 200,000 tons of ore were removed yielding 3,500 tons of copper metal. The mines closed in 1877 and the Abandonment Plan of 1878 shows all the workings open at that date. This period saw the mining of West Mine and Wood Mine and the reworking of Engine Vein, Brinlow, Doc Mine and other smaller mines on the Edge (Warrington, 1981, Carlon, 1979 and Carlon and Dibben, 2012).
20th century
There were some limited and unsuccessful attempts to re-open the mines in 1911 (Anon, 1911), during the First World War and shortly after but these ended in a sale of equipment in 1926 (Warrington, 1981). From the 1860s onwards, there have been many thousands of visitors to the mines, many – including the earliest – with good lighting and experienced leaders. However, many other visitors, especially between 1940 and 1960, were ill-equipped and unprepared. This led to a series of accidents, which included four fatalities, that gained the mines a notoriety which still haunts them today. The West and Wood Mines were finally blocked in the early 1960s (Jones, 1961). In 1969, the Derbyshire Caving Club obtained permission from the National Trust (the owners) to re-open Wood Mine and since then much has been found by excavation and exploration, and thousands of people have visited the mines in supervised groups.
See also
References
Notes
- ^ Boyd-Dawkins, W. (1876). On the Stone Mining Tools from Alderley Edge. Jour. Anthropological Inst. G.B. and Ireland, Vol. V, pp 2-5.
- ^ Sainter, J.D. (1878). The jottings of ... some rambles round Macclesfield. Swinnerton and Brown, Macclesfield.
- ^ Roeder, C. (1901). Prehistoric and subsequent mining at Alderley Edge, with a sketch of the archaeological features of the neighbourhood. Trans. Lancs. Cheshire Antiquarian Soc. Vol. 19, pp 77–118.
- ^ Roeder, C. and Graves, F.S. (1905). Recent archaeological discoveries at Alderley Edge. Trans. Lancs. Cheshire Antiquarian Soc., Vol. 23, pp 17–2.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Garner A., Prag A.J.N.W., Housley R. (1993). The Alderley Edge Shovel, An Epic in three Acts. Current Archaeology. (137) pp. 172-175.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Timberlake, S. & Prag, A.J.N.W. (2005). The Archaeology of Alderley Edge. British Archaeological Reports No 396. Oxford: John and Erica Hedges Ltd. ISBN 1 84058 007 0.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Anon (December 1996). The 'Pot Shaft' Hoard, Alderley Edge, Cheshire. Coins in Context: the controlled micro-excavation of a fourth-century Roman coin hoard. Final Report. University of Manchester Archaeological Unit.
- ^ Bennett, J.H.E. and Dewhurst, J.C. (1940). Quarter Sessions Records ... for the County Palatine of Chester 1559-1760. The Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire. pp. 195–197.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Stanley, L.D. (1843). Alderley Edge and its Neighbourhood. Didsbury: J. Swinnerton, Macclesfield. Reprinted 1972, E. J. Morten.
- ^ Bentley Smith, D. (2005). A Georgian Gent & Co. - The Life and Times of Charles Roe. Ashbourne: Landmark Publishing. ISBN 1-84306-175-9.