RootsChat.Com
England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => England => Derbyshire => Topic started by: Olive H on Friday 30 October 09 20:19 GMT (UK)
-
Does anyone know if there have ever been any slate mines in Derbyshire, or Yorkshire.
Thanks..
Olive
edit:
Presumably these would have been "stone slate" mines and weren't these used in roofing prior to Welsh slate becoming popular. I know the Lake District had some slate - how popular was that in housing versus "stone slate" or Welsh slate.
Thanks.
-
Hi Olive,
You might find the following website forum item interesting. It's a mine exploration website with about 5,000 members, and there are very interesting topics from all over the UK. It's called Aditnow, and one topic called "Slate...Across the UK" was very interesting and mentioned the area around Derbyshire and the Derbyshire stone slates.
http://www.aditnow.co.uk/community/viewtopic.aspx?t=3505
Margaret Howard
-
Hi Margaret
Thanks for that link....will check that out :)
Cheers
Olive
-
You might find some info via Peak District Mines Historical Society - www.pdmhs.com, although I think that you'll find it was mostly lead mines in the PD.
-
I've been a member of the Peak District Mines Historical Society for about 45 years and have a complete set of all their Bulletin/Journals, there are a few articles but nothing specific about slate. PDMHS have a website, with an index of all articles that have been printed in the Bulletin/Journals, some articles have been uploaded to their website, not all. If an article cannot be uploaded Derbyshire Local Study Library at Matlock, and Derby Local Studies Library at Derby will have copies of the PDMHS's publications that can be consulted. However, for someone who is not acquainted with mining/quarrying and just generally interested in slates please go to the ADITNOW website forum address that I gave, as there was a good discussion from all over the UK which gave a lost of useful information. I contributed to the discussion and (from memory) gave a Derbyshire website address which described the use of stone slates in Derbyshire.
Briefly, there are coal mines in South Derbyshire, East and North East Derbyshire, also North West Derbyshire. On the edge of the coalfields ironstone mines were worked all up the eastern side of the County from just north of Derby (in the area from Stanton ironworks up to Sheffield). These mines produced thinly bedded layers of stone, but they were chiefly worked for the ironstone not for slates. The lead mine area is roughley from Wirksworth north to Castleton, and from the River Derwent east across to Hartington and Buxton, with the two lead mining inliers of Ashover and Crich located to the east of the lead mining field (called by the Barmote Court the King's/Queen's Field depending upon which monarch was on the throne). There is a large band of Gypsum in the south stretching from Staffordshire (the RAF bomb dump that stored bombs in the gypsum mines at Fauld blew up at the end of the war, from memory I can't remember the date), eastwards across South Derbyshire (Chellaston was one place were it was worked) and into Nottinghamshire where there is still a working gypsum mine.
Slates were quarried at Mount Sorrell in Leciestershire, but the bed rock there is granite. Slate was also quarried in North Leicestershire - please read Adnitnow's website for a lot more detail.
Trust this helps a little further.
-
I found this http://www.stoneroof.org.uk/exsessr.html which may interest you. They have some pics there too e.g. http://www.stoneroof.org.uk/frame.htm
There is a bit on page 2 of http://www.derbyshire.gov.uk/images/stone_slate_roofs_tcm9-22031.pdf as well.
-
Thanks for the links msallen, sougher and gardener. A very detailed answer sougher....thank you very much. Will now go and do some research.
Sougher: so if someone was listed as a "slate quarry owner" for the Peak District area....this was referring to ironstone specifically was it ?
Thanks :)
-
Thanks for the links msallen, sougher and gardener. A very detailed answer sougher....thank you very much. Will now go and do some research.
Sougher: so if someone was listed as a "slate quarry owner" for the Peak District area....this was referring to ironstone specifically was it ?
Thanks :)
-
Apologies for the delay in replying to your query which was:-
"if someone was listed as a 'slate quarry owner' for the Peak District area.... this was referring to ironstone specifically was it?"
We're getting into the complicated subject of Derbyshire's geology - geology being a very undertaught subject in schools! Which specific area of the Peak District are you searching in for a "slate" quarry? If I have this information I might be able fill in a bit more about the background information. Imagine the northern part of Derbyshire which is called the Peak to be domeshaped and mainly composed of limestone; to the west and east the gritstones followed by the coal measures consisting of layers of coal, clay (this is why a lot of potteries were found in coalmining areas as they used the local clay i.e. Denby, Langley Mill, Chesterfield etc.) and sandstones, overlay the edges of the limestone and dip westwards into Staffordshire and eastwards into the Notts/Derbyshire coalfield. As previously stated ironstone was also mined in the east and north east of Derbyshire, but these mines were not necessarily "slate" mines. Gritstone was quarried in the north, west and east of the Peak, and inbetween the gritstone and the coal measures are beds of sandstone and sandstone shales, which being laminated could be split along the bedding plane and sandstone slates produced. Also to the east of the coal measures (incidently all the rocks that I have described above were all laid down in the Carboniferous Era), are found deposits of rock called "rotten stone" or "Bolsover stone" which is formed from Permian magnesium limestone (the carboniferous limestone of the Peak District Dome is composed of calcium carbonate) and when first quarried looks to be a good building stone, but when weathered, erodes terrible - the Houses of Parliament were rebuilt of Permian magnesium limestone after it was burnt down in the 19th century, and has had to have drastic repairs to it in the 20th century. Slate is an metamorphic rock (which means it has been changed by heat by volcano rocks intruding or overlying the bedrock), from either of the other two types of rock i.e. sedimentary (which are laid down by water e.g. limestone, gritstone, coal measures, shale, mudstones, sandstone etc.) or igneous (formed from heat, i.e. volcanic rocks e.g. granites, basalts, dolerite, gabbro etc.) True slate such as Welsh slate was once shale (a sedimentary rock) changed by heat to slate. True marble is limestone (a sedimentary rock) having been changed by heat to marble. - I do hope I have not complicated matters.
However, the majority of people having hardly any detailed knowledge of geology tend to call limestone "marble" when it isn't, so you can see the confusion that could arise when describing perhaps a sandstone, or ironstone quarry when it was found that thin laminated beds of rock that were quarried made ideal stone slates. Thus such a quarry owner could correctly describe himself as a "slate quarry owner" without the rock he was quarrying being a pure slate such as Welsh slate, but a stone slate. I assume that you have found your ancestor (the slate quarry owner) on the census returns and that is where you've got his occupation information from.
Sorry if I've complicated matters, but will try and help you further with your query if I can. I've got many ancestors in the Peak who were lead miners; "brenners" who were lead smelters; "adventurers" who were lead miners who drove drainage levels (called soughs pronouned "suffs") to dewater lead mines; and a gt. grandfather who was a "marble mason" at Ashford-in-the-Water - he worked on the beautiful inlaid ornaments, tables etc that were so popular from the 18th century onwards (if ever you're in Buxton, call in the museum and view their Ashford Black Marble collection, it's the best collection I know). He called himself a "marble mason" but the rock they worked on was actually quarried and mined from beds of carboniferous limestone found near Ashford that when polished turned black, hence the famous name "Ashford Black Marble". I've obviously inherited these "rock" genes from all of these ancestors (some dating back to the 1500's), hence my great interest in geology, with me going caving and mine exploring in my youth. Sorry to have ranted on so much. Trust this helps a little in your research.