Details

The monument is situated on the east bank of Rookhope Burn, 2km north of
Eastgate. It includes the ruined structures of a lead mine with a small
associated ore works and a terrace of miners' cottages. Features include the
standing remains of a large wheelpit, with a shaft and settings for pumping
machinery; the buried and earthwork remains of an ore processing area; and the
standing ruins of a mine smithy. All deposits of mining and dressing wastes
are included in the scheduling.
Brandon Walls Mine is set within the wider, more extensive industrial
landscape of Rookhope valley: uphill and 40m to the east there is a well
preserved bank of lime kilns associated with a small lime and ironstone
quarry, served by a mineral railway. Remains of further lead, iron and other
non-ferrous mines and smeltmills, extending up the valley to the north west,
lie outside the area of protection. Brandon Walls Mine forms one of the well
preserved core areas of this landscape.
Operational by 1850, the mine was initially profitable because the lead ore
contained on average 6oz of silver per ton of lead. The mine was worked by
the Brandon Lead Mining Company from 1862 until its failure in 1872 when it
was taken over by the Rookhope Valley Mining Co. which worked it in
conjunction with Thorney Brow and Stotfield Burn Mines, 0.5km and 1.5km
respectively to the north. Brandon Lead Mines Company never made a profit and
sold the mine shaft before its closure in 1882. Brandon Walls is not thought
to have worked again and was finally abandoned c.1903.
The wheelpit, measuring c.13m by 3m, is nearly complete, apart from the
tumbled south western end, and retains some timbering and iron work. It
originally held a c.13m diameter overshot waterwheel which powered a set of
pumps in the c.110m deep shaft, c.5m to the north east. Water was fed to the
wheel from Rookhope Burn by a leat which can be identified c.30m to the east
and traced northwards for approximately 0.7km. The shaft is stone lined and
c.2.5m in diameter. It is uncapped and linked to a 5m by 5m chamber at the
north east end of the wheelpit. This chamber is formed by revetment walls to
the rising ground surface. Both the shaft and chamber are filled with water to
within 4m of the top of the revetment, obscuring anything below.
Running south west from the shaft, perpendicular to the line of the wheelpit,
there is a c.17m long, 0.7m wide trench that is partly covered. This ends at a
1.5m diameter rubble filled, stone lined pit. This is thought to be a trench
for a rodway which connected the pump rods in the shaft to a balance bob in
the pit (balance bobs were weights used to balance the weight of the pump
rods, and thus improve the pumps' efficiency). Approximately 4m beyond the
shaft, in line with the wheelpit, is another rubble filled pit. This measures
2m by 3m and retains an iron bolt. Two metres to the south west there are a
further four iron bolts protruding from the ground arranged in a 1m square.
These are thought to be the settings for winch gear serving the shaft. A
structure measuring c.3m by 5.5m formed by three equally spaced parallel
walls, 0.5m wide and up to 2.5m high, lies 3m south west of the balance bob
pit. The space between these walls, which are parallel to the line of the
wheelpit, is filled with earth and rubble forming a rounded earthwork up to
1.3m high. This structure, and the balance bob pit, are built on a low spoil
mound that extends westwards from the shaft to the bank of Rookhope Burn and
forms a low finger tip that extends c.50m downstream (southwards). The south
eastern side of this spoil heap is revetted by a curving wall that starts at
the north west corner of the wheelpit, where it is 1.5m high, and reduces in
height to reach ground level c.25m to the south west. A level area
approximately 8m by 12m between the wheelpit and the spoil heap, in front of
the revetment, provides access into the south west corner of the water filled
chamber. To the south of the wheelpit there are a number of shallow hollows,
typically 0.1m deep, which are believed to be the remains of manual ore
processing equipment. Approximately 20m to the south of the wheelpit are the
standing remains of a 8.5m by 5m, two storey, twin celled building with small
out houses to north and south.
The main, northern room contains a large 1m by 2.5m hearth, and is interpreted
as a mine smithy. The building survives to a maximum height of 3m and is
partly terraced into the hillside. Behind the smithy, a steep track runs
uphill to a short terrace of three, two storey miners' cottages which survive
as ruins, partly to eaves level. To the rear of the southernmost cottage
(c.5m to the east), there is a 2.5m diameter circular stone built structure
standing to 0.5m.
All modern fencing is excluded from the scheduling, however the ground beneath
is included.

MAP EXTRACT
The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract.

Source: Historic England

Reasons for Scheduling

Approximately 10,000 lead industry sites are estimated to survive in England,
spanning nearly three millennia of mining history from the later Bronze Age
(c.1000 BC) until the present day, though before the Roman period it is likely
to have been on a small scale. Two hundred and fifty one lead industry sites,
representing approximately 2.5% of the estimated national archaeological
resource for the industry, have been identified as being of national
importance. This selection of nationally important monuments, compiled and
assessed through a comprehensive survey of the lead industry, is designed to
represent the industry's chronological depth, technological breadth and
regional diversity.
Nucleated lead mines are a prominent type of field monument produced by lead
mining. They consist of a range of features grouped around the adits and/or
shafts of a mine. The simplest examples contain merely a shaft or adit with
associated spoil tip, but more complex and (in general) later examples may
include remains of engine houses for pumping and/or winding from shafts,
housing, lodging shops and offices, powder houses for storing gunpowder, power
transmission features such as wheel pits, dams and leats. The majority of
nucleated lead mines also included ore works, where the mixture of ore and
waste rock extracted from the ground was separated ('dressed') to form a
smeltable concentrate. The range of processes used can be summarised as:
picking out of clean lumps of ore and waste; breaking down of lumps to smaller
sizes (either by manual hammering or mechanical crushing); sorting of broken
material by size; separation of gravel-sized material by shaking on a sieve in
a tub of water ('jigging'); and separation of finer material by washing away
the lighter waste in a current of water ('buddling'). The field remains of ore
works vary widely and include the remains of crushing devices, separating
structures and tanks, tips of distinctive waste from the various processes,
together with associated water supply and power installations, such as wheel
pits and, more rarely, steam engine houses.
The majority of nucleated lead mines with ore works are of 18th to 20th
century date, earlier mining being normally by rake or hush and including
scattered ore dressing features (a 'hush' is a gully or ravine partly
excavated by use of a controlled torrent of water to reveal or exploit a vein
of mineral ore). Nucleated lead mines often illustrate the great advances in
industrial technology associated with the period known as the Industrial
Revolution and, sometimes, also inform an understanding of the great changes
in social conditions which accompanied it. Because of the greatly increased
scale of working associated with nucleated mining such features can be a major
component of many upland landscapes. It is estimated that several thousand
sites exist, the majority being small mines of limited importance, although
the important early remains of many larger mines have often been greatly
modified or destroyed by continued working or by modern reworking. A sample of
the better preserved sites, illustrating the regional, chronological and
technological range of the class, is considered to merit protection.

Unlike coal mines, which had regular supplies of cheap fuel, lead mines
avoided using steam power wherever possible, relying instead on waterwheels
and hydraulic engines for pumping. Brandon Walls Mine retains a well preserved
example of a typical 19th century water powered pumping arangement. In
addition, the earthworks to the south of the wheelpit are believed to retain
rare waterlogged remains of manually operated ore processing equipment.
Together with the adjacent domestic buildings, the site is a good example of a
small mid-19th century lead mine.
The site is crossed by the Weardale Way, a major public footpath, and forms an
important educational resource and public amenity.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Books and journals
Burt, R , The Durham and Northumberland Mineral Statistics, (1983), 9-10
Chapman, N, 'Friends of Killhope Newsletter' in Rookhope Mines Part 2, , Vol. 30, (1994), 17-22
Chapman, N, 'Friends of Killhope Newsletter' in Rookhope Mines Part 1, , Vol. 29, (1994), 13-17

Source: Historic England