Report - Small quarries and mines in the Hassop and Calver area, Derbyshire, Various times in 2021 and 2022

HughieD · Apr 3, 2022

Mines and Quarries in the Hassop and Calver area
The following five sites don’t merit a report in their own right unlike the larger lead workings to the west at Harrybecca. However, they make a nice little ensemble of smaller sites that otherwise wouldn’t get reported on normally.

Location Map:

A – Red Rake Mine
B – North Cliffe Sough Mine
C – Backdale Wood Quarry
D – Brightside Mine
E – Deep Rake Quarry

(A) Red Rake mine
This small lead mine was first worked in the 19th Century. It is shown as ‘disused’ by according to an 1879 Ordnance Survey (OS) map which indicates a relatively small site consisting of a shaft and an adit portal to the east. A straight track ran east from the portal, terminating in a circular feature which has been interpreted as possibly a pond, rather than a dressing circle. To the north were two buildings and another circular feature. The adit portal, also known as the Newburgh Level, was constructed in 1851 by the North Derbyshire United Mining Company as a haulage level (and not a drainage sough as it was frequently taken to be) for Red Rake, Cat or Catsal Rake, Dog Rake, and other smaller veins in Northcliffe Wood. The vein was reworked in the early 20th Century for fluorspar, lead, and barites. The portal has been preserved by the Peak District Mines Historical Society (PDMHS).

Looking up the flooded approach to the adit:

Close-up of the entrance. You can just about make out the 1851 date stone:

Nearby collapsed building:

Repurposed ex-mine building:

This looks like the collapsed remains of the explosives store:

(B) North Cliffe Sough Mine
Recorded as producing lead in the 1870’s, there isn’t that much history out there on this mine. In 1880 the mine was also producing stone and gravel although lead-mining came to an end around 1883. In response to the demand for fluorspar by the steel-making industry, the mine, along with Red Rake, was acquired by G.G. Blackwell and Sons. An incline was constructed when they worked the mines between 1907 and 1919. The local Barmaster’s book record ore measurements from 1908 onwards. It was the post-war decline in the price of flourspar that lead to the mine closing in 1919.

Not too much left of this place now:

(C) Backdale Wood quarry
The most modern of the five locations and one worked until very recently. Although it has had other owners in the past, the most recent owners were Bleaklow Industries. Also known as Bleaklow Limestone Quarry, Backdale Quarry has been a subject of legal dispute since 1952 when permissions to mine were first granted for fluorspar extraction. The Peak District National Park Authority enforced action in 2009 to control what they considered to be excessive limestone extraction at the quarry. In proceedings which progressed to the European court and after years of legal wrangling, it was finally judged in November 2010 that excessive limestone quarrying in the Peak District was illegal, bringing to an end the desecration of Longstone Edge. Hence the long-running uncertainty over Backdale Quarry ended in success for Peak District National Park landscape protectors in 2016, with Bleaklow Industries Limited, being obliged to restore the land in line with National Park planners’ recommendations, bringing to an end more than 17 years of complex planning work and legal action.

The National Park’s battle to protect Longstone Edge first started back in 1999 when legal action began over excessive limestone extraction at the quarry, which was damaging the landscape and in the National Park’s view contravened a 1952 planning permission – this allowed the extraction of vein minerals (mainly fluorspar) found within limestone in this area.

The first thing you come to is the former weighbridge:

And some porta-cabins:

On to the quarry itself:

HughieD · Apr 3, 2022

CONTINUED:

(D) Brightside Lead mine:
Situated on a steep wooded slope, remains include ruined buildings, earthworks, and buried remains of the Brightside lead mine. Records from December 1789 make reference to 38 miners being employed at the mine. The mine was acquired by the Brightside Mining Company in 1851 and two years later in 1853 they commissioned a 22-inch cylinder steam engine for pumping and winding duties, made by Bray and Co. from Leeds. Steam was also used for a sawmill, and possibly for crushing ore in the early stages of processing. Horses were initially used to pull ore to the surface, with an adit giving access to the mine, giving way to a steam engine driving winding gear to haul ore out of a vertical shaft. In the northern part of the site, a well-preserved portal or archway forms the entrance to the stone-lined adit known as the “Newcastle Way.”

West of the adit, a partially collapsed shaft survives. Immediately south of the shaft the ruin of an engine house is visible as a substantial earthwork of approximately 5m by 10m, with a well-preserved square chimney base at its western corner. From the shaft, ore was carried across a revetted track and tipped into ore hoppers which stood in a range of at least four immediately below the track. They are sub-circular stone structures of around 1.5m diameter and height each open at the top and with a small opening to the southeast. Ore would be washed here, and the water reused to serve a dressing floor immediately in front of the wash kilns. The dressing floor, where ore was further treated to separate lead-bearing particles from other materials, partially survives as an accumulation of dressing waste. A portion of the dressing floor, and possibly other remains, have been lost by landscaping.

The southern portion of the site is dominated by a large, ruined building or buildings south of the track, with walls standing in places to 2.5m, and earthworks representing collapsed walls. This is thought to be a sawmill used during the later life of the mine, but early dressing floors or shallow extraction features are believed to be concealed beneath it. The sawmill used the mine's steam engine and was therefore closely associated with the mine.

The mine reached its peak output between 1855 and 1860, when just over 3,000 loads of ore were raised. Thereafter production reduced and the mine was closed in 1869 and the steam engine sold off to Coalpithole mine in the Peak Forest.

Adit Entrance to the mine:

Inside looking out:

Nice stonework:

Roof prop:

Then we hit a collapse:

Some of the former tram rails:

Small reservoir:

(E) Deep Rake quarry
Deep Rake, along with High Rake and Watersaw Rake, is one of the largest mineralised zones in the lead orefield of Derbyshire. It extends 4 miles from Cressbrookdale before disappearing under shale at the Calver-Hassop Road. Previously it had been extensively worked from the medieval times, but by 1750 most underground working had ceased and only heap working was being carried out. Now completely open-cast and worked for fluorspar and baryte. High Rake Quarry is a limestone quarry located near the village of Great Longstone, about 3 miles (5 km) N of Bakewell. It is one of many limestone quarries in the Peak District National Park. High Rake Quarry is a deep and narrow gash in the hillside, largely hidden from view. It is one of a series of quarries on the ridge above Hassop and Great Longstone. Longstone Edge limestone ridge, within the area known as Longstone Edge West, is a prominent limestone escarpment about 2.5 miles (4 km) in length on a general east-west alignment. In addition to limestone extraction, High Rake Quarry has also been used by British Fluorspar Ltd (BFL) for the extraction of fluorspar (fluorite). It is now a 20+ years long term site for infill purposes using waste tailings material from Cavendish Mill, which is the fluorspar processing facility owned by BFL.