interment of St. Guthlac, who was originally a monk of Repton, a sarcophagus of lead lined with linen (plumbeum lintheumque). This lead was obtained from the possessions of the old Saxon religious establishment at Repton, part of which were the mines near Wirksworth. In the year 835, Kenewara, then abbess of the same nunnery, made a grant to Humbert, the alderman, in which she surrenders that estate of mines, called Wircesworth, on condition that he gives annually as a rent to archbishop Ceolnoth, lead to the value of three hundred shillings, for the use of Christ's church, Canterbury. On the destruction of the religious houses by the Danes, in 874, it is probable that the lead mines became the property of the crown. The mines in the Peak and in the wapentake of Wirksworth, were undoubtedly regarded as the peculiar domain of the sovereign at a very early period, and as such they are mentioned in Domesday book.

The documents given in the Appendix will prove the jealousy with which the monarchs of England have ever regarded these mineral treasures. In the sixteenth year of the reign of Edward I. an inquisition was held at Ashbourn, in which it was proved that the right of all minerals was in the prerogative royal, and that the crown had a claim of dues from all who worked the mines. Another inquisition was held at Ashbourn and at Wirksworth in the reigns of Edward VI. and Philip and Mary.-Queen Elizabeth, in the sixteenth year of her reign, granted all her mineral possessions in this county to a society or corporation, which was to consist of thirty-six shares, divisible into halves and quarter shares. Her grant and charter will be found in the Appendix.

At the time of the Norman survey, as we have already stated, the business of the lead mines was extensive. The castle of the Peak, which was probably built soon after the conquest, was, as appears by a survey made in the reign of Elizabeth, covered with lead. The Domesday book mentions three mines at Wirksworth, and one in each of the manors of Crich, Ashford, Bakewell and Meterford.* The king's mine at Wirksworth was granted to Robert del Don by Edward I.: that of Crich, which had been granted by king John to Hubert Fitz Ralph was confirmed by Edward II. to Roger de Belers in 1325. The Devonshire family have long been lessees of the mines in the hundred of High Peak. The lease of those in the wapentake of Wirksworth was in the family of Rolles, and having been sold under a decree of chancery, is now vested in Richard Arkwright, esq. of Willersley castle.

CHAP. 2.

Antiquity of

the Lead

Mines.

Laws.

The mineral laws consist of a body of regulations, framed upon ancient Mineral rights, customs and immunities. These particularly apply to the portion of the county called the King's field, which contains the hundreds of the High Peak and the Wirksworth wapentake or Low Peak, with the exception of Griffe liberty near Hopton, some estates near Eyam and other places. These laws are considered to extend, with some modifications, to the mines at Crich, which are situate in the Morleston hundred.-There have been disputes, in which it has been insisted that the rights of mining do not attach to any lands or manor which did not originally appertain to the duchy

"It is particularly observed, that the three manors of Bakewell, Ashford and Hope, paid in the time of Edward the Confessor £30. and five cart loads of 50 sheets (of lead) but that in the time of the Conqueror it paid only £12..6."-Meterford is supposed to mean Matlock.

CHAP. 2. of Lancaster, but it seems to be the opinion of the majority of the miners, that the whole of the mining districts are subject to these laws, or to some modification of them.

Mineral
Laws.

Barmaster gives Possession.

Method of

Working the
Mines.

These laws or customs (a curious compendium of which will be found in the Appendix) originally authorised any man or set of men to enter at any time into any part of the King's field, comprising the greater part of the mountain limestone district of Derbyshire, to dig or search for veins of ore without being accountable to the owners or occupiers of the soil, for any damage which they did to the surface, or even to the growing crops. At present, however, it is held, that unless a miner procures ore enough from any search he may make after a vein, to free the same, that is, to pay to the king or his farmer or lessee, a dish of ore, he is liable to the occupier for all damage he may have done him. Fortunately for the farmers of the present day, the searches were so repeated and universal in former times, that few persons think of digging or delving on the limestone surface in search of new veins of ore. In the King's field there are several officers appointed called bar-masters, and mineral courts are held, at which a jury of twenty-four miners decide all questions respecting the duties or cope payable to the king or his farmer, and to the working of the mines, by those to whom the bar-master has given possession. In certain cases, this court can enforce the payment of debts incurred in the course of mining transactions.

There can be little doubt of these laws having been framed when the mines were worked entirely by manual labour. It appears from them, and from the customs still referred to in the mineral districts, that when a person had found a vein of ore, he made certain crosses on the ground as a mark of temporary possession. He then informed the bar-master, who received a measure or dish of ore, the first produce of the mine, as the condition of permitting him to proceed in working his meer, or measure of twenty-nine yards in length of the vein. On that occasion the bar-master took possession of the next adjoining fourteen and half yards, or the half meer of the vein for the king. If the vein appeared to be productive, other applications were made, and other meers or measures of twenty-nine yards were granted in succession, it being a condition that each person or company possessing their meer or meers in partnership (called groove fellows) should immediately begin and continue to work, and that, in case of intermission for three successive weeks, the bar-master might dispossess those to whom the mine had been assigned and give the works to others.

The first mines were made where the limestone is covered with a light soil. The ore or spar was thrown out by common hand-instruments on each side of the vein. When they had thus sunk and thrown out the vein stuff as far as was practicable, a square frame was prepared, composed of four narrow planks of wood, laid across and pinned together at the corners, on which two others were erected, with holes or notches to receive the spindles of a turn-tree or rope barrel, for winding up ore in small tubs. This apparatus, called a stowse, being erected on each meer or mine, the sinking was further continued, and the heaps on the sides of these open works or open casts increased, until, in numerous instances, a perpendicular ditch of the width of the vein, and many yards deep, was opened, with

proportionally large heaps of rubbish on each side, for many hundred yards in length, with other similar veins and heaps, parallel to, or crossing them at various angles. Great numbers of the mines thus opened proved too poor in their produce of ore, to be sunk lower than the men could throw out the stuff, before the miners abandoned them; and others, after some progress had been made in deepening them by means of stowses. But, as in after times, other adventurers might appear, who would resume the work, the strictest laws were made and enforced by the mineral courts, for preventing the occupiers of the soil, or any other persons, from meddling with the dangerous ditches, or throwing in the heaps of barren white spar and rubbish which the miners had left on the land. Some shallow mines, opened apparently in the very earliest periods of mining in Derbyshire, still remain, and, until within a few years past, most, if not all, of the veins which had been tried to a few yards in depth and abandoned, remained in this state or altered only by the treading of cattle, and the natural mouldering of the sides, except where roads, and the fence walls dividing properties, crossed them. As the mines which proved richer in ore increased in depth, instead of continuing to draw the vein stuff to the surface, the miners constructed floors or stages of wood across the mine, called bunnings, just above their heads, and on these they threw the refuse; and as the work thus proceeded, the shaft under the stowse was lined with either timber or stone, and a regular hill was at length formed, called the mine hillock.

In process of time, the mines increased in depth, and reached the water in the strata. The labour and expense then exceeded the value of the ore, and many valuable mines were abandoned. Horse-gins were then contrived, and soughs were driven for draining off the water. The mines or meers became consolidated, or the property of them united; and being connected below, the ore and vein-stuff was carried to particular shafts, and on the hillocks, coes or small buildings were erected, for stowing ore and tools, with sheds for the accommodation of the ore-dressers.

The mining laws, which had previously required a working stowse, and its actual use, at least once in three weeks, became relaxed, and small models of stowses, made of thin laths of wood, provided by the bar-master, came in use, as the means of keeping possession of all the meers but one, in a consolidated mine. This custom is rigidly enforced even at the present day, so that a mine on which large steam engines, powerful horse-gins, and other expensive apparatus have been long used, is not held to be legally occupied, unless one of these pigmy memorials of the primitive mode of drawing ore, is constantly kept "in sight of all men," as the law expresses it, on or within a certain distance of the drawing shaft, and others on the meers of ground or lengths of twenty-nine yards.

CHAP. 2.

Method of Working the

Mines.

ous to Im

These ancient mineral laws, framed in times very different from the Ancient present, have become in numerous instances injurious to the progress of Laws injuriimprovement. If a known vein, whether productive or not, crosses the provement. paddock or garden of a farmer, or the park of a gentleman in the King's field, it must be taken of the bar-master by the payment of a dish of ore: sham stowses, and even a real stowse must be erected, and periodical attempts, however slight and colourable they may be, must be made to work the vein. Unless this is done, any other person, by application to the bar

Ancient

ous to Im

provements.

CHAP. 2. master, may dispossess him of such vein, enter his lands and make buddleponds, and ways and roads within his grounds. The mining laws required, Laws injuri- not merely the discovery of a vein of ore, but that the mine should actually have been worked, so far at least as to obtain the king's dish of ore, before possession of it could be given by the bar-master, but now the bar-masters do not require proofs that the king's dish of ore presented to them is actually obtained from the vein, to which they are officially called to grant a title. This relaxation of the mineral laws has in some measure protected private property, but it has given rise to other evils, of which the possessors of old mines with great justice complain.

It cannot be expected that we should here explain the whole of the processes by which the mines are now worked. Our survey of this part of the subject must necessarily be very cursory.-In working deep rake veins, roofs of shale or toadstone, termed bunnings, extend over the miners' heads, who, in getting the ore, are said to drive a stoop of work before them. Sometimes there is only one stoop of work, about four, five, or six feet in height, in progress at the same time; while, in other mines, where many men are employed, two or three stoops are wrought, the upper one being kept forward two or three yards, and the next as much before the lower one or sole, like steps, by which the miners do not interfere with each other materially. The face of a stoop or fore-field of the mine, is seldom worked upright or straight, but is hollow in the middle, to suit the swing of the miner's pick; and many of the miners pride themselves in the neatness of the face of work which they preserve in moderately hard veins, where the pick is alone sufficient for the work. In some mines, strong iron wedges, and even frequent blasts of gunpowder are necessary for loosening and getting the ore and spar. The produce of ore, even in the same rake vein, varies exceedingly: an extent of one yard in depth and height, in one of the best mines, will differ in the quantity of ore obtained from 1600 to 300 pounds. The thicker pipe veins are worked in the same manner, but in working the smaller or thin pipe veins, it is necessary to cut out or enlarge the gates or passages, as in working thin seams of coal: in these the workmen are obliged to crawl on their hands and knees, and in many instances to lie along on their sides.

We have already mentioned, that the Derbyshire mines are held in shares. These shares are frequently small, as 48ths; 96ths; and even 384ths and 768ths; are held in some works. The very smallest mines often have many partners concerned in them.*

Besides the regular mines of lead ore, this metal is sometimes procured in the natural alluvial accumulations of ore and spar; as at Green Lane, south of Brassington, at Great Longsdon, at Over-Haddon, and at Priestcliff. It is indeed the common opinion, that the ore thus found is the remains of what the early miners carried to these places to dress; and this,

Tithes upon ore are paid only in Eyam parish and in Wirksworth, including Cromford and Middleton. The pretence of claiming the tithe of lead ore, is said to have been, that the ore grew and renewed in the vein. The composition with the clergyman at Wirksworth will be found in the note (p. 67.) In Ashover, Matlock, Darley and other parishes, expensive litigations were carried on by the clergy previous to 1780, for enforcing the tithe of lead ore, but without suc

cess.

in some cases, does not appear improbable, but that masses as ponderous as lead ore, have been moved considerable distances in common with other alluvial matter, is sufficiently clear, from several masses of lead ore, one of which is stated to have weighed sixty pounds, having been found about forty years ago, in deepening the water course below Sturston mill, near Ashbourn; and from a mass of lead ore weighing 25 pounds, which was seen by Mr. Farey himself, and was taken from the gravel-pit at the top of the hill, in the village of Wyaston in Edlaston.

A list of LEAD-MINES, which are or have been in work in Derbyshire.

CHAP. 2.

Masses of

Lead Ore.

List of Lead
Mines.