Blagill Mill at Langley – NY83208260
Messrs Jobling and Company, who worked Blagill and Lough Veins on Alston Moor, sought the Greenwich Hospital’s permission to build a smelt mill and refinery near the latter’s Langley smelt mill. This was agreed to and a 21 year lease issued in 1785.
William Jobling renewed the lease at a rent of £140 per annum in 1806. He also asked that the Hospital build a set of horizontal chimneys for his use, offering to pay 8% of the estimated £700 cost as additional rent. A plan of the mill at this time shows that it had a roasting furnace, three ore-hearths, a slag-hearth, a refining furnace and a reducing furnace, using five pairs of bellows worked from a single waterwheel of 25 feet diameter and about 2 feet 6 ins width. The plan also shows that there were already some horizontal chimneys. Presumably the intention was to increase the length of the chimneys.
Further information and references can be found in:
- Fairbairn, R.A. (1993) The Mines of Alston Moor (British Mining No.47)
