Pricing Change
New pricing for orders of material from this site will come into place shortly. Charges for supply of digital images, digitisation on demand, prints and licensing will be altered.
Accessing Scotland's Past Project
Event ID 560757
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Accessing Scotland's Past Project
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/560757
Mining first took place at Lecht in the late eighteenth century, when the York Mining Company established workings here on land forfeited to the government following the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion. Both ironstone and manganese ore were mined at the site and were transported to Culnakyle, near Nethybridge, for smelting.
The most prominent feature of the mining landscape at Lecht is a two-storeyed, rubble-built building with a large arched doorway, which was restored and re-roofed with local slate in the 1980s. It dates from a second, post-1841 phase of activity at the mine, and probably served as a crushing mill, powered by a water wheel measuring almost 8m in diameter which was set at one of its gable walls. Other remains include a mill lade, dumps of waste material, and mine workings which consist of vertical shafts and adits which have been driven at a shallow angle into the hillside.
When production reached its peak during the 1840s, 63 people were employed at the mine. By 1847, however, cheap imports of manganese from Russia made it unprofitable and the mine closed.
Text prepared by RCAHMS as part of the Accessing Scotland's Past project
