Bog Mine

Overview

The Bog, on the edge of the Stiperstones, was one of Shropshire's oldest and longest-worked lead mines, growing from open moorland into a full mining village over nearly two centuries before falling silent in the 1920s — its former school now the area's visitor centre.

History

Mining at The Bog began in the 1730s, working the Bog Vein alongside the neighbouring Mytons Beach and Perkins Beach workings, and continued for close to two hundred years. By 1793 around a hundred miners and their families already lived at the site, and the settlement grew through the 19th century into a proper mining village with rows of cottages, a pub and a school alongside the mine buildings themselves; major phases of work are recorded through the 1830s-40s, 1850s and 1860s-80s. As lead output declined toward the end of the 19th century, the mine turned to barytes instead, worked on into the early 20th century; in 1917, with the country short of workers during the First World War, Shropshire Mines Ltd drove a new 123-metre level — known ever since as the Somme Tunnel — specifically to provide employment for miners otherwise out of work, and in the same year installed a five-mile aerial ropeway, built with the help of German prisoners of war, to carry barytes for treatment at Minsterley. The mine finally fell silent in 1922-24, and most of its buildings were subsequently demolished.

Geology

The mine worked the Bog Vein and associated lodes, running broadly east-west and dipping around 45 degrees to the south, within the Shropshire lead-mining district's Ordovician rocks around the Stiperstones.

Geological setting: Hydrothermal Deposits (well documented example), Veins and Lodes (well documented example)

Workings

Three shafts — Weston's, Bunting's and Engine — were sunk in succession along the Bog Vein from east to west. The 1917 Somme Tunnel, a 123-metre level, was driven specifically to provide work for otherwise unemployed miners during the First World War, and the same year's five-mile aerial ropeway, built with German prisoner-of-war labour, carried the mine's barytes output to Minsterley for processing.

Closure

Lead gave way to barytes production in the early 20th century, and the mine finally closed in 1922-24; most of its buildings were later demolished, leaving the former school as the site's principal surviving structure.

What remains

The former village school, a gas-lit Victorian building, survives as the Bog Visitor Centre — one of the few original buildings remaining from the lost mining village. The Somme Tunnel survives and remains accessible outside bat-roosting periods.

Traces of the aerial ropeway's footings, the powder house and other mine features survive across the site, now part of the Stiperstones National Nature Reserve.

Abandoned workings can be dangerous — unstable ground, uncapped shafts, flooding and bad air are common even where a site looks safe from the surface. This entry describes history and general location only; it is not an access guide.

Recorded claims

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

• By 1793 around a hundred miners and their families lived at the mine; by the 1850s the settlement had grown to include rows of cottages, a pub and a school. ¹
• The 1917 Somme Tunnel is a 123-metre level driven by Shropshire Mines Ltd specifically to provide work for unemployed miners, and the same year's aerial ropeway, built with German prisoner-of-war labour, carried barytes five miles to Minsterley for treatment. ¹

Images

Sources

1. (secondary) The Bog and Pennerley Mines — Stiperstones and Corndon Hill Country Landscape Partnership
2. (primary) Bog Mine Plan (BGS Mine Plans Catalogue) — British Geological Survey
3. (secondary) HISTORY & INFORMATION — Bog Visitor Centre

Record created: 22 August 2026 · Last researched: 22 August 2026