Killhope Lead Mine, Weardale
In Search of the Lead Mining Heritage of Northern England
High in the Pennine Hills, Killhope, The North of England Lead Mining Museum offers a incredible opportunity to encounter what life was like for Victorian lead miners
Lead is not a commodity that is looked upon nowadays as being particularly user friendly. All sorts of sinister connotations are conjured up from its uses. It was and still is used to line the inside of coffins and more recently it has been used as a repository for toxic and even nuclear waste. Once lead was an almost universal material in much the same way as plastic is today. It was used the world over and during the days of the British Empire lead from North East England went around the globe in huge quantities.
Weardale lead was among the finest and Park Level Mine at Killhope produced some of the finest seams of this heavy metal. Coming from high in the North Pennines this lead was renowned for making important products. Lead for all those products was hard won by miners working down below in the most atrocious conditions. Weardale was a hive of activity in the lead mining boom. The miners who delved in the hills saw little benefit from this growth and in most cases they were also subsistence farmers. They needed to grow their own foodstuffs to survive as the wages were so poor for the mining.
One place where the ways of lead mining of old can still be seen is at Killhope, The North of England Lead Mining Museum.. There is a huge Armstrong water wheel dominating the site and it is still possible to go down the mine and encounter what life must have been really like for those miners. This can be a pleasurable experience for the tourist going down the mine for a few minutes while those miners struggled down there all their working lives doing what was certainly a very dangerous job. Without a doubt many of these hardy souls had a very short lifespan indeed.
Killhope museum has plenty of interactive and realistic exhibits. There is even a miner’s house of olden times complete with its tin bath, box beds and cramped living quarters. The ore had to be sorted and crushed and the miners collected many colourful examples of the minerals they found at Killhope. These can be seen along with the fascinating collection of spar boxes. These boxes contain colourful crystals of purple and green fluorspar, black zinc, white quartz, silvery lead and yellow chalcopyrite. It is possible to watch how the lead was cleaned and sorted at the washing rake and to examine the huge hutches that brought the lead up from the bowels of Weardale. There are also woodland and wildlife walks to be enjoyed after a trip down the mine
