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Publication Account

Date 1986

Event ID 1017357

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Publication Account

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1017357

These hills have been mined from time immemorial, possibly since Roman times, and on a commercial basis since 1680. Most of the visible remains, however, are the products of mining and smelting activity during the past two centuries. They are now cared for by a local museum trust with help from Scottish Development Department and Buccleuch Estates Ltd.

From the museum (the old smithy), a visitors' trail run through the major features of the village. The museum is located on the valley floor close to Wanlock Water, which flows north-westwards, eventually to empty into a tributary of the River Clyde.

It is down this valley that the visitor should proceed, following the track of an old narrow-gauge railway and re-crossing the bum to approach the entrance to Loch Nell Mine. This mine was fIrst opened in 1710, abandoned, then re-opened and used in its present form from 1793 to the middle of the 19th century. It continued in use as an exit from adjacent mines, and is now open to visitors over a distance of about 200m. In the second phase it was associated with a deep shaft, still terrifyingly visible within; this in turn was connected with a drainage level under Straitsteps Mine, the next objective on the visitors' trail.

The water-bucket pumping engine above Straitsteps Mine at NS 870131 is the monumental showpiece of Wanlockhead. As befits the only known waterpowered beam-engine of its kind in Britain to survive virtually intact, it is a monument in State custody. Its task was to pump water out of abandoned workings, and it performed this function probably from the late 1870s to the early 1900s. Its design, however, was based on engines used extensively in mining industries well over a century earlier.

To operate the pump, water from a cistern was piped under the road and into a box-like bucket at the end of the beam that is held within the wooden steeple frame. The weight of water depressed that end of the beam, raising the pumping apparatus affixed to the other end. At the bottom of each stroke (about every 30 seconds) the water was released automatically through a valve into a stone-lined drainage pit, causing the pump spear to be lowered, ready to lift its next column of water up the shaft to the drainage level. Affectionately known as 'Bobbing Johns', such devices were relatively simple, and could be left to operate with the minimum of attention. Would that some water in a bucket, or a coin in the slot, could set it all in motion again!

Near the pump there is the circular track of a horse-engine which was at one time used for winding ore and spoil out of the mine. From here, the trail traverses the valley to a modem plinth, which bears a reproduction of a 1775 drawing showing the mining scene from about this viewpoint The trail then recrosses the valley to the ruins of Pates Knowe Smelt Mill. When it was built in 1764 this mill was only one of a number on the Wanlock Water, but in about 1789 it was enlarged in order to smelt all the mined ore. In 1845 it was partly dismantled in order to build a new mill downstream. Excavation has revealed the outline of two 'back-to-back' furnace houses sharing a central water-driven bellows house. The cast-iron 'Scotch ore' smelting hearths are rare survivors from the 18th century, and the ore and slag hearths in the eastern half of the building have been partly restored to give an impression of their original appearance. Equally signifIcant discoveries have been made at the Bay Mine (NS 868137), the furthest point on the industrial trail. The visible remains represent successive attempts to pump water out of this area of particularly deep mines. Stone mountings are all that survive of the atmospheric steam pumping engine which operated here from 1790 to 1799. Upon the reopening and deepening of the mine (to 152.4m) after 1842, a hydraulic pump was introduced alongside a steam-powered winding engine, but even these combined arrangements could not cope with the flooding effects of torrential rains. In the 1880s an auxiliary pump was built purposely to be driven by flood water. The surviving stone-built pit shows that it must have had a big 9.1m diameter wheel, no doubt a memorable sight as it turned in the pouring rain.

There is, of course a human, as well as an industrial side to the Wanlockhead story, which is best told by the buildings in the village, by the monuments in the burial ground eNS 864136), and by the museum exhibits. The whole village is known to have been rebuilt by the Quaker Company in the decade after their lease of 1710. Again, after 1842, when the Dukes of Queensberry took a direct stake in the running of the mines and in the welfare of the workforce, the houses were rebuilt and their numbers increased. When direct ducal control ended in 1906 there were about 173 inhabited dwellings in the village and Meadowfoot Many had upper storeys, slated roofs and dressed stonework, but, a substantial proportion had steeply-pitched, heather-thatched roofs concealing boxed 'lums'. The ruins of one such terraced row can be seen by the roadside on the return journey from Bay Mine.

The community buildings were also built or rebuilt in the middle decades of the 19th century. As an institution, however, Wanlockhead Library is second only to Leadhills as the oldest subscription library in Britain. In 1756, 32 men of the village, mostly miners, subscribed to a reading society 'for the purpose of purchasing books for our mutual improvement'. The first purpose-built library was erected in 1788, and the present building was put up in 1850 to accommodate a much-expanded collection. It was last used as a lending library in the 1930s.

Main-line railways arrived in the neighbouring valleys in the mid 19th century, and a branch-line railway ran between Wanlockhead and Elvanfoot from 1902 to 1938. In the early days most lead was carted to Leith, and if the visitor follows this route on his return journey he will see the surviving evidence of rival concerns in the neighbouring village of Lead hills (NS 8814; Clydesdale District, Strathclyde Region). The mining grounds here were owned by the Hope family from the 1640s, and contributed to Hopetoun House, their grand mansion in West Lothian. The mines were closed in 1928, and, compared to Wanlockhead, the centre of Lead hills now exhibits considerably less of its industrial origins.

Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: Dumfries and Galloway’, (1986).

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