Brian Spencer visits the finest example of an 18 th and 19 th century lead mine existing in Britain .
A pair of tall chimneys , a sturdy pit-head winding wheel , a lonely cottage and a ruined stone engine house stand in a field off the Bakewell to Chelmorton road , high on the limestone plateau near Sheldon . They are the surface remains of one of the Peak District ’ s ancient lead mines ; mines where fortunes were lost , murder took place , but with only a small financial reward for all the effort . In spring the field on which the remains stand is ablaze with masses of wild flowers , many quite rare , especially those such as lead wort or mountain pansy , plants which thrive on land often poisonous to other species .
The capped mine shaft
As with much of the eastern edge of the White Peak , the area around Sheldon is riddled with a complex of narrow lead veins . Early records show that small scale working took place around 1740 , the first of a dozen shafts dug within a matter of yards of each other . This first attempt doesn ’ t seem to have come to much , an early indication of the years of frustratingly unprofitable effort that came later . However , twenty years on George Goodwin of Monyash decided to try his luck by sinking a shaft into the Shuttlebark Vein close by the boundary wall to the west of the cottage . Later to be known as the Magpie Engine Shaft it was seriously deep and movement of stone and men required the efforts of a horse-gin , or engine , to reach 360 feet beneath the ground before water prevented further exploration . This like many others to follow produced little if any , ore .
Being abandoned , the next person to try his luck with the mine was Joshua White who successfully applied to the ancient Monyash Barmote Court to take on the mine ’ s title . He was probably one of the few people to make any money out of Magpie Mine for he wisely sold his shares to one Peter Holme and partners . They worked the mine for another seven years , digging narrow climbing shafts and expanding along one or two narrow veins , but even they abandoned work in 1793 . Rising prices of lead in 1801 encouraged Holme to try again , this time by taking over the rights of surrounding veins and reopening the old Shuttlebark Engine shaft in order to link the different veins . Holme and his partners were so confident of success that they celebrated the event with beef and ale . Unfortunately this confidence was short lived , for like Goodwin nine years earlier , water prevented the miners from going any deeper ; Holme is on record of saying , he ‘ could not go ( further ) because of the watter ’. Even using a horse gin in an attempt to lift some of the water was ineffective .
The most profitable time came in 1810 when a passage or ‘ gate ’ was being
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