Cornish Hush Mine
| Cornish Hush Mine | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| General information about the mine | |||
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| Information about the mining company | |||
| Operating company | London Lead Company and from 1971 SAMUK | ||
| Start of operation | By 1863 at the latest | ||
| End of operation | 1902 | ||
| Successor use | 1971-1972 and 1979-1980 | ||
| Funded raw materials | |||
| Degradation of | Lead ore , calcite , chalcopyrite , fluorite , galena , pyrite and quartz | ||
| Geographical location | |||
| Coordinates | 54 ° 41 '56.8 " N , 1 ° 59' 48.8" W | ||
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| District ( NUTS3 ) | County Durham | ||
| county | County Durham | ||
| Country | United Kingdom | ||
The Cornish Hush Mine was a British lead ore and fluorspar mine in Weardale .
location
The mine was located in the Howden Burn Valley in the Bollihope District of Weardale in the North Pennines , County Durham , England .
history
Lead ore was mined in the mine from 1863 to 1902 at the latest, as well as from 1971 to 1972 and from 1979 to 1980 fluorspar .
Lead mining
One of the first publications about the mine dealt with a fatal accident in which the miner John Collinson was buried on January 14, 1863 by a large amount of stones and lead ore that fell on him while he was working, killing him instantly. A colleague by the name of Bainbridge had been working with him about two minutes earlier and then walking about five feet away to smoke his pipe when the stones fell on his colleague. Bainbridge removed it quickly, but Collinson was dead.
The London Lead Company leased the mine from the Dean and Chapter of Durham in 1867 under the name Cornish Mine . It was directed by RW Bainbridge, whose son Henry Bainbridge also worked there. All of the work to clean up and prepare the ore rock was done in the ore wash by machines operated by young people under the supervision of an adult.
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On July 27, 1867, salmon fishery inspectors reported a visit to several lead mines, where they inspected the sedimentation tanks for the purification of the waste water, which was technically called hush ( en ) after the ore-stone Had washed through the mixture in the laundry. There were three large tanks for this, each equipped with several longitudinal members, which she divided into individual compartments in order to clear the waste water from impurities. In addition to these tanks through which the water flowed, there had been two large septic tanks side by side since about 1863 , which had been set up at the suggestion of the Fisheries Commission in Darlington .
In its heyday in 1898, the mine employed fourteen miners, twelve of them underground and two above ground . The last agent for the Cornish Hush Mine was Joseph Anderson and its last manager was Mr. Willis before the London Lead Company went bankrupt in 1902.
Fluorspar mining
Various crystals, including the decoratively colored fluorspar ( fluorite ), for which no industrial use was known until the late 19th century, were a major by-product of lead mining. Fluorite is not a gem, but fine specimens are valued by collectors. The fluorite from Weardale fluoresces due to europium contamination when excited with bluish-ultraviolet light. The characteristic fluorescence of fluorite samples from this area is responsible for the term used to describe this phenomenon. Weardale fluorspar ( s ) are considered by collectors to be one of the best and therefore most valuable in the world. In the 20th century, fluorite was increasingly used for the manufacture of non-stick frying pans, CFCs , aerosols and other products, as well as for steel smelting.
Swiss Aluminum Mining UK Ltd (SAMUK) reopened the Cornish Hush Mine in 1971-1972 and 1979-1980 to mine fluorspar in the Cornish Hush Vein and Sharnberry Vein , but the latter was never reached.
Narrow gauge railway
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The mine was connected to the ore wash in Whitfield Brow by a narrow-gauge railway approximately one mile long .
The mine’s Samson locomotive was built by Stephen Lewin of Poole in Dorset in 1874 as a two-axle steam locomotive with a left-hand gear drive. Its steam cylinder and its crankshaft , designed as a jackshaft , were located above the boiler and drove the rear wheel set via the intermediate gear of the gear transmission. The cranked jackshaft was provided with a pinion under a safety cover on the left and a flywheel on the right. The front wheel set, which was coupled to the rear wheel set via a pair of coupling rods, had a redundant gear so that the front and rear axles could be interchanged or replaced with the same spare part if the gear wore out. The gears on the left-hand wheels of the locomotive did not come into contact with either the rail or a rack. So they were not used to increase the pulling force like a cogwheel locomotive.
The locomotive had a track width of only 22 inches (559 mm), an output of 2½ or 3 hp and a service weight of 2.6 tons. As with their even smaller sister locomotives "Ant" (ant) and "Bee" (bee) from the Great Laxey Mine , their driver's cab only offered space for the train driver, who sat on the rear buffer beam. "Samson" was probably scrapped around 1904.
A full-size replica of the locomotive with a 2-foot (610 mm) track gauge was built in the Beamish Transport Museum from 2013 and successfully put into operation on January 12, 2016.
Web links
- PeteJ: Cornish Hush Level Samuk Buildings , 1971.
- Paul Rodrigues: Weardale - Cornish Hush Area (29 photos on Flickr).
- Paul Jarman and Roy Link (Eds.): The Book of Samson… RCL Publications, 2016.
Individual evidence
- ^ Durham Mining Museum: London Lead Co.
- ↑ a b c d e f Mindat: Cornish Hush Mine, Bollihope District, Weardale, North Pennines, Co. Durham, England, UK.
- ↑ a b c d e f g Durham Mining Museum: Cornish Hush (Lead Ore).
- ^ Fatal Accident In A Lead Mine Near Stanhope. In: Newcastle Guardian and Tyne Mercury. January 24, 1863, page 5, column 3.
- ↑ a b Lead mines of Weardale and Teesdale. Report by Inspectors of Salmon Fisheries 1867. In: The Mining Journal , July 27, 1867. Reprinted in: Memoirs 1968. Northern Cavern & Mine Research Society, Skipton, GB, 1968, pp. 33-38
- ^ Mr Willis, once told Sir Kingsley Durham that he was the last manager alive who managed a mine for the London Lead Company. This is thought to have been at Cornish Hush.
- ^ The Newsletter of the Cumbria Amenity Trust Mining History Society. No. 119, May 2015.
- ^ A b Paul Jarman: On the trail of Samson… July 3, 2012. Archived version with photos from February 18, 2013, accessed on April 2, 2019.
- ^ Bernard Roberts: London Lead Company.
- ^ The Industrial Railway Record. Issue No. 39, p. 136.
- ^ Narrow gauge mineral locomotive by Mr Stephen Lewin, Poole, Dorset, Engineer. In: The Engineer. January 1, 1875.
- ^ Paul Jarman: Samson - A long lost Lewin. In: In Narrow Gauge, No. 86, March – April 2013, pp. 32–34.
- ^ LG Poole: A day to be remembered. The Industrial Railway Record. Issue No. 28, pp. 162-163, December 1969.
- ↑ Paul Jarman: Another momentous day for Samson, with it raising steam for the first time - ever!
- ^ New for old 1874 locomotive to steam at Beamish: Living Museum of the North at Beamish to host first steaming of Samson in April. 20th January 2016.
- ^ Paul Jarman: Samson ... * Updated *. April 2016.