page_title: Derbyshire lead mining history
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Derbyshire lead mining history / Background
caption_attribution_description: English: T&#39;owd Man, near to Wirksworth, Derbyshire, Great Britain. Inside Wirksworth church is this Anglo Saxon carving from Bonsall church. It depicts a lead miner. There are many lead veins in the area, originating from Carboniferous volcanic events. &lt;a href="https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2298199"&gt;SK2656&#160;: Goodluck Mine - Veins&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2298217"&gt;SK2656&#160;: Goodluck Mine - Galena in Barytes&lt;/a&gt; There are several more carvings, well worth a visit. The church is open most days. &lt;a href="https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2326137"&gt;SK2853&#160;: Wirksworth Church&lt;/a&gt;
context_section_description: It has been claimed that Odin Mine, near Castleton, one of the oldest lead mines in England, may have been worked in the tenth century or even as early as Roman Britain, but it was certainly productive in the 1200s. Derbyshire lead mines are mentioned in the Pipe Rolls. Recent analysis of a Swiss ice-core extracted in 2013 indicates that levels of lead in atmospheric pollution between 1170 and 1216 were as high as those during the Industrial Revolution and correlate accurately with lead production from Peak District mines, the main European source at the time. On one of the walls in Wirksworth Church is a crude stone carving, found nearby at Bonsall and placed in the church in the 1870s. Probably executed in Anglo-Saxon times, it shows a man carrying a kibble or basket in one hand and a pick in the other. He is a lead miner. The north choir aisle of Wirksworth church is dominated by a far more ostentatious monument, a large ornate alabaster chest tomb, a memorial to Ralph Gell of Hopton, who died in 1563. The simple figure of the miner bears witness to the fact that for centuries the people of Wirksworth and their neighbours relied on lead mining. Ralph Gell's imposing tomb is evidence that a few people became rich and powerful from the trade.
  While Derbyshire lead made Gell and others rich, for poor families it was both a living and an adventure, with the possibility of a better life from a lucky find. The industry was organised in a way that gave a measure of independence to many of them. Mining was hard and dangerous work: death, illness and injury came from poisonous lead dust, underground floods, falling rock, methane gas in shale workings and lack of oxygen in badly ventilated galleries. From the later years of the 17th century gunpowder introduced a further hazard. Nonetheless the thousands of shafts, hillocks and ruined buildings in the limestone landscape of the old lead mining areas, and the miles of galleries underground, make it plain that the veins of lead were intensively exploited. In the words of a petition to King Charles I "many thousand people are dailie imployed in the lead mynes, to the greatt proffitt of your Majestie ... and to the whole Comonwealth ... in getting greatt quantities of lead for the use of the Kingdome in generall, and in transporting the rest to forraigne Nations...".
  By the 17th century lead was second in importance in the national economy only to wool. It was essential for the roofs of public buildings and the new houses being built in every part of the country by the nobility and gentry. All houses, including farmhouses and cottages by then, had glazed windows, with lead glazing bars. It was the only material for water storage and piping. Every army used it as ammunition. There was a thriving export trade as well as the home market and the Wirksworth area was the main source of the ore.
  Wirksworth was the administrative centre of one of the hundreds, local government units, of Derbyshire. Uniquely, the Wirksworth Hundred was still known by the archaic term Wapentake. Lead ore was Crown property in most places and the mining area of Derbyshire under royal control was known as the King's Field, with two separately administered divisions, the High and Low Peaks, each further divided into liberties, based on parishes. Wirksworth Wapentake was the Low Peak area of the King's Field. At different times there were liberties based on Wirksworth, Middleton-by-Wirksworth, Cromford, Brassington, Matlock, Elton, Middleton-by-Youlgreave, Bonsall, Hopton and Carsington, and from 1638 until 1654 there was a separate liberty for the Dovegang, 200 acres (0.81 km²) on Cromford Moor which had become extremely productive after being drained by the first of the Derbyshire drainage schemes, or soughs.
  There had always been lead mining in and around Wirksworth. This is limestone country and the fissures characteristic of limestone contained rich deposits of minerals, and especially of galena: lead ore. The Romans mined there and left inscribed "pigs", or ingots, of smelted lead as evidence. In the 9th c
caption: T'owd Man, Wirksworth
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