Snailbeach Lead Mine

On Sunday we visited the Snailbeach Lead Mine in Shropshire - prompted by a random internet search in the morning which discovered a rare open day! In its day, Snailbeach was the largest lead mine in Shropshire, allegedly yeilding the greatest volume of lead per acre of any mine in Europe. Lead was mined here by the Romans, and although the mine closed in 1955 the remains are still well-preserved (not least due to a large restoration project in the 1990s.) As well as lead, the mine also produced Barite, Calcite, Fluorspar, Silver and Zinc. Here we are - all set to go along the adit...


Moss was slightly reluctant, all the more so because she was not able to be equipped with hard hat and lamp!


Our mine tour was conducted by an extremely enthusiastic member of the Shropshire Mining and Caving Club. We were escorted along the adit for a couple of hundred yards until we reached the main shaft - originally extending 552 yards below the ground, but now flooded so that only the first 112 yards is extant. All of us small boys dropped stones down the shaft - and astonishing explosive noise echoing up as the stones hit the water.

Outside, many of the pithead buildings have been restored. Here is the smithy, impressive with brand-new bellows (Rob take note!)...


...and this is a view of the Locomotive shed.


The compressor house, winding engine and pumping engine houses are also well-preserved. Elsewhere in the village there are a couple of curious survivals, despite considerable gentrification and modernisation.


Indeed the whole landscape was faintly redolent of Cornwall - not least because of the persistent drizzle, but also as a slightly scruffy unplanned landscape full of partly derelict mining remains and excessively modern pebbledashed single-storey houses. The Cornish parallels were made further apparent as we made our way home (via an excellent and much needed feast of chips and Three Tuns ale in the Stiperstones Inn). We stopped by the site of the Ladywell Mine, the engine house of which now forms the focus of a set of sheep pens.


All in all a marvellous day out - and once again I continue to be surprised by the endless variety of landscape which Shropshire has to offer!

Post-medieval and Roman ironworking

My excursion on Wednesday involved visits to an 18th- and 19th-century forge site in Worcester, and a return visit to Roger's site in Shropshire. At the latter they have now excavated the circular feature shown in the previous post (see below, or here).


I had to sadly dash Roger's initial hopes that this may have been a bloomery... it is far too large, too deep and there is absolutely no sign of in-situ burning or heating. The fill is a mixture of charcoal and smithing slag - nothing too obviously from smelting activities but it was difficult to tell from the uncleaned items which I saw on site. There is also a large quantity of Roman pottery: Samian and greyware are evident in the tray on the left in the photo above.

The visit to Roger's site followed one to a very interesting project a little further south. Here there is a long-established forge on a stream, and the local group there have found the base of a reheating furnace. I made a visit in conjuction with other colleagues of the Historical Metallurgy Society, including David Starley and Peter King, as well as the county archaeologist.


Once again hopes were dashed by the visit, as the excavators had wondered if they might have encountered a puddling furnace. However, after a great deal of discussion and debate, the consensus emerged that this was the remains of a pair of more conventional re-heating furnaces. Probably of 19th century date. One was clearly in use later than the other (pictured); the earlier one had a large quantity of slag in the base but had been much robbed out.

Work continues on both sites, but not for much longer...

Something completely different

The proverbial busman's holiday! It is that time of the year again, the Birmingham University archaeology training excavations. Roger White has been working on a cracking site near Bridgnorth, a possible vicus to an as-yet-undiscovered fort. They are now into week three of the dig, and we made a quick visit last week just after the conference.


As well as a large quantity of Samian sherds ranging in date from the 1st to the 4th century, there is also a substantial amount of smithing slag - including a few fragments of hearth bottom. Roger sent in this photo of a charcoal-filled circular feature yesterday. I shall be going out tomorrow afternoon for another visit to see what is emerging.

After the conference

Many thanks to everyone who came and made a contribution; still tidying up at this end! Plans for publication are progressing (some quite interesting ideas there), and quite a helpful series of new ideas has begun to emerge. Here is the 'team photo' taken at the wine reception by Adam of Aerial Cam, whose Land Rover and telescopic pole delighted delegates on Thursday and Friday.


Meanwhile research into other matters continues.

Yesterday morning I had a delightful (if all-too-brief) meeting with Ian Burrow about their New Jersey steel furnace, and then spent a very long perambulating lunch with Brian Dix. We visited Madeley Court (where they supplied us with coffee and sandwiches) and then around various parts of the sixteenth and seventeenth century landscape of Madeley and Caolbrookdale. We also discovered a hitherto unrecognised link between Shropshire and Northamptonshire recusants into the bargain!

All of which marvellous jollification is a long way from the "real work" of today; finalising invoices, editing reports, preparing tenders and working out my own work programme for the reduced-hours future of the next few months. At least it has stopped raining!

Fe09 "Footprints of Industry" Conference

After a great deal of hard work - both in preparation and during the five days of the event itself - the conference is finally over! By all accounts it went extremely well, and it was a fantastic opportunity to meet a wide range of colleagues from all over the world. We had about 85 individual delegates, averaging about 70 actually in attendance on each of the five days. These included an evening opening with a lecture by Michael Darby and a wine reception, three very full days of papers, and a final day of tours. Plus a party on the Friday night with about 100 in attendance and lots of Celidh dancing; as well as a final conference dinner on the Saturday and so-on.

I am still recovering... and too tired to go into a long and detailed report, so for now here are a few photos of some of my highlight moments, all taken by Katie, who I think had a better time than I did since she was able to do all the usual conference conversation and networking without being distracted by various requests.

This was the evening meal after the opening night on the Wednesday, naturally enough in the Coalbrookdale Inn.


It was absolutely fantastic to see Ron again, and here we are posing at the landscaped site of our epic steel furnace excavations which took place in 2003, 2004 and 2005. Both looking rather smarter than we ever did in those days, and rightly proud of our achievements at the Upper Forge.


As conference organiser I was largely deprived of many of the perks of conference going - such as being able to chat about archaeology to colleagues! However in a rare free moment (away from sorting out broken projectors, faulty toilets, missing presentations, virus-laden memory sticks, food supply and so-on), I had one of the my real highlights of the conference. This was extended discussion with Ian Burrow of Hunter Research Inc. (New Jersey) about their recently-discovered 18th century steel furnace. In an historic moment here are the only four people in the world who have excavated 18th century cementation furnaces: Ron Ross (L), Ian Burrow, myself and David Cranstone:


Marilyn Palmer and David Cranstone presented me with a bottle of port on the last day of the conference as a "thank you" for organising it... I was extremely grateful and quite moved by the warm applause.


The Sunday post-conference tour took place in six hours of continuous heavy rain. Most people had decided to go home early anyway, so numbers were rather depleted. At this stage we had been en route for about two-and-a-half hours and were already rather soggy. L-R: Pablo Sanchez (Spain), Colin Axon (Oxford), me, Gerhard Ermischer (Germany), Andrew Passmore (Exeter), Alan Levitt (USA) and L H Verseldt (Netherlands).


More in due course - including some of the exciting outcomes of the conference, tomorrow's further meeting with Ian Burrow, and Brian Dix on sixteenth century sundials.