Coniston Copper Mines

Route 1: Coniston Village to Red Dell & Thriddle Foot Workings; God’s Blessing, Black Scar Workings and Sam Bottom.

In Coniston if a person turns up directly by the side of the Black Bull, and follows the road up, he will soon come to the fell gate beyond which the road becomes an unsurfaced cart-track...cart road if you wish. After a short distance the route traverses along the side of the deep gill or ravine of Church Beck and before the way was widened a few years ago, in connection with water-works, it was much narrower. Depending upon the weather the beck in the bottom can be but a gentle steam or, on the other hand, a rushing torrent. The Coniston Waterfalls, as they are now popularly known, might as a result be something of a disappointment but if the water is high then it will not be possible to get to the first of the tunnels, or levels, catalogued in this manual - Coniston Falls Level, we shall know it by.

Its entrance is hidden at the end of a natural cleft, at the extreme lefthand of the fall. Driven in for some 519 feet it runs for part of its length along a fault, which forms one wall of the tunnel; in doing so it provides an interesting cross-section. Finely divided haematite is seen to be associated with the fissure. The ‘railway’ in the tunnel seems to have consisted of boards along each side laid either on sleepers or directly onto the floor. Gaps between boards were frequently made good with slabs of slate. A strange affair indeed! The truck must have been a simple affair, with flangeless wheels and low capacity. Such a waggon would have required both pushing and pulling. The waste from the driving (and the drilling was done by hand for the gunpowder charges... possibly dynamite towards the end) was certainly ‘lost’ in the beck. The reason for putting in this tunnel is somewhat obscure; it would be absurd to consider driving an adit, or drainage level, all the way up to the copper mine. The working is quite safe although, it must be admitted, a trifle wet in the entrance.

Do not hasten off just yet, pause at the foot of the waterfall and look upstream. What a grand aspect it is, with Miners’ Bridge surmounting the cascade. With a little imagination it might be possible to visualise the heavy cartloads of dressed ore, creaking their way across, and then down to the copper-house at the rail-head. After the railway was brought to Coniston the lake transport ceased and a way of life departed forever.

Alas! Already the writer is guilty of digression. This is a guide to the mines in the fells, as they are found contemporaneously, yet, almost with every step one takes, one cannot avoid meeting the past. Throughout the book the reader might well, repeatedly, expect some explication which will be found, maddeningly perhaps, not to be forthcoming... and the reason for all this is simple, though apologies must surely be proffered. It is, that to spill the beans now would only detract from the forthcoming history!

Pass on therefore, up the mine road until, at the top of the rise, one is confronted suddenly and grandly, with Coppermine Valley...