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Northern Mine Research Society
Registered Charity 326704
Yorkshire Smelting Mills
Apedale Beldi Hill Blakethwaite Bobscar West Burton CB Clints/Bathhurst's Clints/Willance's Cobscar Phillips/Conyers Easby Ellerton Farndale Gilling Glebe Grovebeck Hartley's Grinton How Keld Heads Keldside low reeth Lownathwaite Marrick Cupola Marrick High Marrick Low Moulds High Moulds Low newgang Octagon Old Gang Preston Raygill (high) Sargill Scott's Smith's Spout Gill Stainton Summer Lodge Surrender Swinnergill Waitwith Feldom/Whashton Buckden High Birks Fell Buckden Low Starbotton Cupola Heathfield Old & New Prosperous Merryfield Cockhill Providence Gillfield Forest dacre Dacre Banks Whites Grassington High Grassington Low Grassington Cupola Grassington Moor Hebden Cononley Lumb Clough Skelhorn Newton Sykes Kettlewell Kilnsey Malham Lamberts East Malham Surrender New scargill hartley birkett west witton


This is an interactive map, point and click on a location to see further details


A larger scale map of the Old Gang & Surrender Mills

The following smelt mills and bale sites do not appear on the map:
EARLY SMELTING SITES

Bales, which were wind blown hearths, built on exposed hillsides, have been recognised throughout the Pennines, where there is also much place-name evidence for them. There is, however, an interesting and as yet unexplained difference between Derbyshire, where they are called Boles, and the north, where they are always called Bale or a variant of it (Bail, Bayle, Baal etc.). Lawrence Barker, who made a pioneering survey of bales in Swaledale and Arkengarthdale, reported a radiocarbon date of AD 1464 +/- 25 years for charcoal associated with one of the Calver bales. Bales were widely used until the late sixteenth century, when they were replaced by smelt mills with ore-hearths.

A few early smelt mills are recorded elsewhere, but none are known in the area being studied until the late sixteenth century, when mills were built at Marrick and Clints, in Marske. There have been at least 37 mills in Swaledale and Arkengarthdale, plus seven others in Wensleydale, and three copper mills at Middleton Tyas. It is also possible that a few early mills remain unrecognised on the eastern fringe of the lead mining area. For example, the base of an ore-hearth was found at Downholme, where no mill is known.

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