Ghostly lead miners and underground battles—lead mining in Derbyshire.
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| T'owd man, carving of a lead miner |
One of the most iconic images of
Derbyshire is the lead miner. Lead has been mined in the county since Roman
times, and probably before. The lead miner is a common character in the
folklore of the county—particularly in stories like The Little Red Hairy Man. (see my book of Derbyshire Folk Tales)
For Daniel Defoe’s description of
his meeting with a Derbyshire lead miner see my YouTube video for the song 6 Jolly
Miners also mentioned below: Pete sings 6 Jolly Miners
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| High Tor, Matlock |
If you have seen the scars of
lead mining which still mark the hills all around Derbyshire you’ll have
noticed that they follow straight lines. The lead ore was found in seams or
rakes which were often invisible on the surface so the miners would dig down in
a suitable place and then follow the lead under the ground—without really
knowing where they were going! In some places—High Tor in Matlock is a good
example—the lead was near the surface so instead of holes they dug out great
‘canyons’. When I first saw them I assumed they were
natural, an earth slip or fault
line, possible caves.
It is not hard to understand that
someone could start mining in one place and someone else in another and they’d
gradually realise that they were mining the same seam from opposite ends! It
would lead to trouble! That is the situation in the song: The Blobber and the
Windmill Lease.
The Blobber and the Windmill Lease
was sent to me, along with several other songs, by a friend who hoped I
might sing it. (One of the others was 6 Jolly Miners, mentioned above, which
had already been a mainstay of my repertoire for many years and is on The Derby
Ram CD Info re The Derby Ram CD
I’ve tidied up the words a tiny
bit to make it more singable and put it to that well known tune ‘Come All You
Tramps & Hawkers’ which is one of those ‘workhorse’ tunes which have
carried many different sets of words over the years. It fits like a glove.
The story: The Blobber is an
established mine, the Windmill Lease a newly opened one. Blobber’s owners
believe that the Windmill Lease is on their seam and to prove it their Agent
(manager? overseer? foreman?) comes up with a clever idea: instead of mining
the seam thoroughly they just strip off the top soil so that they can trace its
course—and it leads straight to the Windmill Lease, who had to close down. This
was an actual, historical event in the Wirksworth area in the 1740s when the
song was written. Apparently it was still being sung 130 years later but then
disappeared.
MAGPIE MINE
A more famous parallel to the
situation concerned Magpie Mine which is near Sheldon, in the middle of nowhere
really, near Bakewell. Whereas most mining remains are just spoil heaps and
lumps and bumps, Magpie Mine is well preserved with the buildings and winding
gear still fairly intact. The buildings look exactly like the more famous
Cornish tin mines which is not surprising because in its later years it was
worked by Cornish miners and one of the newfangled Newcomen steam engines,
invented in Cornwall, was installed there to drain out the lower reaches which
were below the water table. (There was one at Winster as early as 1717).
(There was a lot of interaction
between the miners of Cornwall and Derbyshire. Winston Graham mentions it in
Poldark which is meticulously researched; Six Jolly Miners has ‘There’s one of
us from Cornwall and two from Derby town….’ and the Castleton May Day garland
ceremony shares a tune with the Cornish ‘Floral Dance’ (who pinched it from
whom!?)) Link to Castleton May Garland
Magpie Mine was at the junction
of several seams and there were three other mines nearby. The fact that they
were worked by local men and the Magpie by the Cornish added to the rivalry. At
one point the Magpie Mine and the Red Soil Pit bumped into each other below the
ground. Both insisted that they were in the right and it was their lead. (How
you would solve that problem amicably I can’t imagine!) There were pitched
battles and both sides tried to smoke out their rivals by lighting fires under
ground. Eventually the Magpie miners lit a fire consisting of a toxic mix of
straw, and coal tar ( and possibly sulphur) and in the panic which ensued
several Red Soil men were suffocated.
Many of the Magpie miners were
arrested and held in Derby Gaol and 18 were finally charged with manslaughter,
although most of them were acquitted because they hadn’t deliberately set out
to kill anyone. After that, for the rest of the
19th century, the Magpie was dogged by bad luck but struggled on until 1958
although it was producing little lead in the latter years.
It is believed that the widows of
the Red Soil miners put a curse on the Magpie and it was, perhaps still is,
believed to be haunted by the ghosts of the three dead men.
On the day I went and took the
photos used here it was cold and blowing a gale. Very bleak. I didn’t have my
camera, only my phone, and the wind was buffeting so strongly it kept on
switching it from camera to help. Or perhaps it was the fingers of those
ghostly miners!
Other links you might be interested in:
