Lead
Lead has been mined since prehistory but the main period of
production was during the eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries. Most of the mines were leased by local landowners to
mining companies with the money and technical knowledge to work
them successfully. A fall in the world price of lead in the 1870s
forced many local mines to close although mining continued at
Wanlockhead well into the twentieth century. The Glencrieff Mine at
Wanlockhead, which closed in 1958, was the last working lead mine
in the country.
Lead ore is found in vertical veins, often with other minerals
like quartz. It was worked by digging shafts and levels -
horizontal tunnels - onto the vein and extracting the lead in a
series of chambers known as stopes. Water was a constant problem.
Sometimes a mine could be drained by driving a tunnel or adit from
a nearby valley. At other mines a pumping engine had to be
installed and many of the local mines were able to use waterwheels
and other types of water-powered engines to drain the workings. A
unique example of a water-powered bucket pump can still be seen at
Wanlockhead.
Once the lead ore had been taken to the surface it was crushed and
washed to separate the lead from the waste. It was then smelted
into ingots or pigs of pure metallic lead. At Wanlockhead and
Woodhead (Carsphairn) the lead was smelted on site. At the mines
around Newton Stewart it was easier and cheaper to ship the ore to
North Wales for smelting.