By Rambler
‘Sough’ is the lead miner’s term for the method of draining water from a mine.
One of the most attractive roads through the Peak District, the one between Bakewell and the A515 Buxton/Ashbourne road takes some beating. Around a mile beyond the cut-off for Monyash, to the right two small chimneys indicate the presence of a major relic of local industrial heritage. The chimneys and ancillary buildings, plus an old stone cottage are all that is left of boom to bust underground activity in the search for lead. This is the site of Magpie Mine where fortunes were made by intense inter-companies rivalry that even lead to murder.
While lead ore mining may have been active in small near-surface activity for hundreds of years, the earliest recorded evidence of miners beginning to explore ever-more deeply came in a report dating from 1740, the start of upwards of a dozen small lead mines that developed as time went by. Local and even itinerant Cornish miners, searched for the riches available in upwards of eight major veins running roughly east/west ever deeper beneath the site. It was also quite normal for abandoned mines to be re-opened by other companies, simply by asking permission from the local Barmote Court, the traditional means of controlling lead mining activities in the Peak.
Due to the proximity of adjacent veins, two or more mines could be operating within only a few feet of rock between them. This was the case in 1833 when teams of Magpie miners from Maypit and Great Redsoil mines came into dispute over the right of Maypit miners to open a side passage, inevitably connecting to Redsoil. Appeals to the local Barmote seemed to be getting nowhere and arguments, sometimes verging on violence, broke out from time to time. All this came to a head when Magpie miners lit a fire in the connecting Maypit passage. Regrettably this led to a number of Redsoil miners being suffocated by the fumes. Twenty-four Magpie miners were accused of murder and taken for trial at Derby Assizes. Luckily for them their counsel was the wily William Brittlebank of Winster who argued that the Magpie/Maypit miners were carrying out a traditional method of breaking down the rock within the passage. Unfortunately, or so Brittlebank claimed, the wind direction changed, blowing smoke into Redsoil, rather than into the Maypit workings. With this evidence, the Jury acquitted the 24 Magpie/Maypit miners, but they left the court with the widows’ curses ringing in their ears; learning all too soon that their mine would never again make a profit.
A boundary wall to the east (right hand) side of the field beyond the cottage and the prominent chimneys leads to the capped-off shaft into Redsoil and Maypit Mines. A few yards away there is the reproduction of a horse-drawn gin, a system operating the lifting of ore to the surface.
The gin is just one of the many features to be seen when passing through the Magpie Mine site. Starting with the cottage, a combination of the mine agent or captain’s house and smithy, it sits within the shade of two chimneys, both part of steam engines that once drew ore to the surface and lowered men to their work. The chimneys give a clue of where their builders came from; the round one was built by Cornish miners trying their luck in the north, they built it in the style they were accustomed to. The square profiled chimney was made by Derbyshire Miners. Various small buildings dot the area around both engine houses. There is an ore store, or coe, not far from the square chimney. This was climbed recently by a courageous Duchess of Devonshire while it was being repointed.
Apart from Britain’s only Grade II Listed corrugated iron hut near the round chimney, the final building of note while at the site, is another of Cornish design. This is where explosives were stored and the idea behind the stone hut, or powder house design is for the effect of any accidental explosion to travel upwards, not outwards.
Passages within the Magpie complex were frequently flooded and in 1873 work began on digging a tunnel, or sough in order to drain the mine. Due to difficult conditions, mainly with very hard rock, and driving the shaft downwards for about 575 feet before it could make contact with the level of the River Wye; all this took until 1881 before it could carry water away from the workings, but the sough did have one extra advantage when small boats could carry ore to the surface, rather than being manhandled along difficult underground passages and then winched by horsepower into daylight. The sough, starting beneath the round chimney engine house follows a route flowing below the village of Sheldon. The walk as described below follows a surface route above the sough all the way to its confluence with the river. In 1973 the sough became blocked which members of the Peak District Historical Mines Association managed to clear. The story goes that when a huge body of withheld water was expected, an angler was spotted tranquilly fishing in the Wye, more or less opposite the sough. Despite being warned, the angler continued to fish, that is until the inevitable happened and a wall of water hurtled towards him. Fortunately he managed to escape in time and in any case, the water level very soon went down to normal.
Traditional lead mining was carried on until as recently as the 1950s, or whenever prices became attractive, but that hasn’t happened for a long time now.
USEFUL INFORMATION:
A moderate walk covering 5 miles (8km) of field paths and woodland tracks. 575feet, (175.09metres) down along Deepdale and then uphill through Great Shaklow Woods.
RECOMMENDED MAP: Ordnance Survey Outdoor Leisure Map Number 1, Sheet OL 24; the Peak District, White Peak Area.
PARKING: Roadside near Sheldon, but please keep well away from field access gates. Alternately use the roadside car park giving access to Magpie Mine from the Bakewell to Buxton road. n.b. the walk described starts from here in order to give walkers the opportunity of a look round the surface remains.
PUBLIC TRANSPORT: TP Service from Derby to Buxton via Matlock stops at the car park near the bottom of Taddington Dale (called Monsal Dale by the bus company!)
REFRESHMENTS: Cock & Pullet Inn, Sheldon village.
THE WALK
The walk can be started either from the Bakewell/Buxton roadside or from Sheldon village. The following description assumes a preference for a look around the site of Magpie Mine before or after the actual walk.
Following a look round the remains of Magpie Mine, carry on past the round explosives hut and head for the open fields surrounding Sheldon.
Cross the intervening walls by stiles and gates where necessary until you reach Sheldon.
Bear left on reaching the village and follow the road for about 150 yards.
Beyond the last building, go to the right and join a field path.
Close by the head of the second field the path forks. Take the right hand and keeping close to the main wall on your right and begin to walk downhill, crossing four fields by using their access gates
Still following the path, drop steeply into dry Deep Dale and turn right.
Walk down the grassy dale (a good place for wild flowers in early summer).
Within sight of a car park beside the A6, swing to the right and follow a woodland path steeply uphill until it forks – take the left hand path descending through Great Shacklow Woods, heading towards the River Wye.
On reaching the riverbank, look out for water draining mines beneath Sheldon issuing from Magpie Sough’ Portal.
Walk on, past the small water-powered mill where bobbins for Richard Arkwright’s cotton mills were made.
Ignoring the track going left towards the road, walk on until a narrow path leaves the main and begins to climb steeply up to the right, through trees.
Eventually you will reach the road through Sheldon; bear right here and walk through this attractive little known Peakland village.
Close by the Cock and Pullet pub, take any of the three paths that lead back towards Magpie Mine and then onwards to the road.