Beezy Mine

Overview

A group of small eighteenth- and nineteenth-century lead workings on the high ground east of the Oxnop Pass, on the moors between Askrigg in Wensleydale and Muker in Swaledale. The Beezy mines worked one of a set of near-parallel mineralised strings (the Satron Tarn, Simon Grooves and Beezy strings) that diverge from the Oxnop fault system, from a level and a half-mile line of shallow shafts. Raistrick records them at work before 1765 and into the nineteenth century; they were abandoned before official output statistics began in 1861, though the name still appears in the Lists of Mines for 1863-74.

History

The Beezy workings belong to the Oxnop Faults-Beezy String group described by the Geological Survey's Northern Pennine Orefield memoir, a set of north-north-west trending fractures east of the col at Oxnop Beck Head that carries the Askrigg-Muker road over the Ure-Swale watershed. On the higher ground east of the valley, where the Little and Red Beds limestones and their cherts form the surface, three strings - Satron Tarn, Simon Grooves and Beezy - were worked, their courses marked by lines of shallow shafts. Beezy String, the easternmost, was worked from a level (Beezy Level) and from widely spaced shafts along about half a mile of ground to the north-north-west; a line of shafts some 1,800 feet long, apparently on the same strings, was worked at the Beezy mines, with Simon Grooves Mine about 1,050 feet north-north-west of the Beezy Level mouth. Arthur Raistrick, cited in the memoir, states that these mines were working before 1765 and continued into the nineteenth century, when they may have contributed to the output credited to Satron Moor; they were abandoned before the official statistics began in 1861 to record individual Yorkshire mine outputs. The name nonetheless appears in the Lists of Mines for 1863 to 1874, on which the Northern Mine Research Society's database entry rests - the two are reconciled if the mine was listed without recorded output in those years, but no source seen states that directly. The last recorded activity anywhere in the group was 2 tons of lead raised from Oxnop Gill Head by G. Calvert and Company between 1909 and 1912, from estate records. The fuller documentary history lies in the NMRS monographs on the Grinton mines (British Mining 51), The Mines of Yorkshire (British Mining 72) and Spensley's account of Wensleydale lead mining to 1830 (British Mining 90), none of which is available online.

Geology

The Beezy strings lie on the watershed between the fluorite and barium zones of the Askrigg orefield and the calcite zone entered at Beezy, in the memoir's zonal scheme running north-north-west from Keld Heads through Wet Grooves, Brownfield Vein and Summer Lodge. The strings trend north 10-15 degrees west off the Oxnop main fault, which is accompanied on its west side by a belt of subparallel faults about a quarter of a mile wide forming a remarkable faulted basin, one of only two such structures in the northern Pennines. The debris at all the Beezy and Simon Grooves workings is limonitised limestone with brown, partly oxidised carbonate enclosing cerussite-coated galena, which the Survey read as ore won from flots in limestone; some ore came from chert of the Richmond Cherts. It is not certain the Main Limestone was everywhere penetrated - the lowest working whose horizon is known, Beezy Level, is at the top of that limestone. Tailings analysed by the Survey were notably zinc-rich: about 14 per cent smithsonite at Beezy Level on the east vein and 13 per cent hemimorphite at the Beezy west vein, oxidised zinc minerals the miners probably never recognised as ore. A dense massive goethite on Simon Grooves String, enclosing cerussite-sheathed galena, was ascribed by Raistrick to replacement of iron carbonate.

Geological setting: Faults and Fractures (well documented example), Veins and Lodes (well documented example)

Workings

Beezy Level, driven at the top of the Main Limestone at about SD 9475 9422, with widely spaced shafts along roughly half a mile of the string to the north-north-west, and a further line of shafts about 1,800 feet long on the same strings; the neighbouring Simon Grooves Mine worked a probable double fracture over 2,000 feet. The memoir names an east vein at Beezy Level and a west vein close by. All were shallow shaft-and-level workings on flots in limestone and chert; no depth figure is recorded.

Closure

Abandoned before 1861, when official statistics began to record individual Yorkshire mine outputs, after working from before 1765 into the nineteenth century (Raistrick, cited in the BGS memoir). The Lists of Mines still name Beezy Mine in 1863-74. The last work in the wider Oxnop group was a few tons of lead from Oxnop Gill Head in 1909-12.

What remains

The Survey mapped the workings as lines of shallow shafts with limonitised, cerussite- and galena-bearing spoil on the open moor east of the Oxnop Pass, with Beezy Level's mouth still identifiable when the memoir was compiled. No recent observational report of the Beezy workings themselves has been found; a 2022 exploration report on the nearby Wet Grooves mine describes the same fault-controlled veins passing through the Oxnop Ghyll, Summer Lodge and Beezy Hill area.

Recorded claims

Individual factual claims, each attached to the source(s) that support it below. Where sources disagree, both are kept.

• Raistrick, cited by the Geological Survey, states the Oxnop strings mines were working before 1765 and continued into the nineteenth century; they were abandoned before official output statistics began in 1861. ¹
• Beezy Mine, Askrigg, appears in the Lists of Mines for 1863 to 1874. (uncertain) ²
• Beezy String was worked from a level at about SD 9475 9422 and from widely spaced shafts along about half a mile of ground to the north-north-west; a line of shafts about 1,800 feet long on the same strings was worked at the Beezy mines. ¹
• Spoil at the workings is limonitised limestone with partly oxidised carbonate enclosing cerussite-coated galena, read as ore from flots in limestone; some ore came from the Richmond Cherts, and Beezy Level, at the top of the Main Limestone, is the lowest working whose horizon is known. ¹
• Survey analyses found the tailings rich in oxidised zinc minerals: about 14 per cent smithsonite at Beezy Level on the east vein and 13 per cent hemimorphite at the west vein, probably not recognised as ore by the miners. ¹
• Estate records show 2 tons of lead raised from Oxnop Gill Head between 1909 and 1912 by G. Calvert and Company, the last activity in the area. ¹
• The mine is covered in NMRS British Mining 51 (The Grinton Mines, pp. 35, 81), British Mining 72 (The Mines of Yorkshire, p. 60) and British Mining 90 (Wensleydale lead mining to 1830, pp. 173, 186-7). ^2,3

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (primary) Geology of the Northern Pennine Orefield, Volume 2: Stainmore to Craven (Dunham and Wilson, 1985) — Oxnop Faults–Beezy String group — British Geological Survey
2. (secondary) NMRS Mines Database: Beezy Mine, Askrigg (id 28555) — Northern Mine Research Society
3. (secondary) Index of articles on Yorkshire 1/4 published by NMRS — Northern Mine Research Society

Record created: 3 September 2026 · Last researched: 3 September 2026