Starbotton Mines

The mines on Starbotton Cam were working in the early years of the 18th century and continued in a small way, from shallow shafts, into the 19th. In the early 1820s three short levels were driven from the head of Cam Gill into the southernmost end of the Gavel veins and some ore was found. In the 1840s Cam Level was driven from Springs Wood to try the veins on the Cam in depth. It found very little ore.

On the south side of the valley, on Moor End Fell, a number of veins cross from the Kettlewell liberty. They were worked from shallow shafts where they outcropped in the limestone, but in the late 1860s Charlton’s Level proved them in depth. This drain the vein at the bottom of existing working and allowed some ore to be won. Mining ended by the late 1870s, however.

In anticipation of increased output from the mines a smelt mill was built alongside Cam Gill Beck in 1843. The mill had one reverberatory furnace, the flue from which ran to a chimney on the hillside behind the village. It closed in 1862.

See: Gill, M.C. The Wharfedale Mines (British Mining No.49, 1994)