Cackle Mackle and Stadford Hollow Lead Mines

Overview

Cackle Mackle and Stadford Hollow, on Longstone Moor, preserve two contrasting faces of Derbyshire lead mining: Cackle Mackle's intensively reworked bell pits and rakes, possibly Roman in origin, and Stadford Hollow's 'Giants Steps' of descending shafts, called the best-preserved small vertical mine left in the county.

History

Cackle Mackle Mine, with its shaft and gin circle, sits within a wider area of very old workings including bell pits and hollows that may date to the Roman period; documents confirm it was worked from the mid-17th to the mid-19th century. Surviving remains include rakes, opencuts and shafts, spoil tips and ore-dressing areas, with dense clusters of small shallow pits and narrow opencuts in its northern part and a number of large shafts, several cutting through earlier workings. A well-preserved hillock-top gin circle survives with a possibly stone-lined buddle nearby, and two well-preserved rakes run east-west for over a kilometre in the south of the site before meeting in a Y-shape at a large shaft. Stadford Hollow, a separate area across a minor road, is a typical small Derbyshire lead-mining complex worked from the very early 16th century to the mid-19th, and is considered the best example left in the county of a small vertical mine -- one of very few such complexes still surviving anywhere in the region. Four well-preserved shaft mounds, each with its own ruined coe, demonstrate shafts descending in a series known as 'Giants Steps', with windlass stones still in position; underground, short cross-cuts link the bases of climbing shafts to the tops of the next in sequence, forming a ladderway that descends deep underground. A wrought-iron bucket recovered from the mine is kept today at the Peak District Mining Museum. Site monitoring in 2008 found the monument not under threat.

Geology

Lead-bearing veins and possibly Roman-period bell-pit workings across Longstone Moor.

Workings

Cackle Mackle: rakes, opencuts, bell pits and a gin circle across intensively reworked ground. Stadford Hollow: four shaft mounds descending as 'Giants Steps', each with a ruined coe, linked underground by a climbing-shaft ladderway.

Closure

Both mines had ceased working by the mid-19th century, per the Scheduled Monument record.

What remains

Scheduled since 1998 as a nationally important monument; site monitoring in 2008 found it not under threat.

Rakes, opencuts, bell-pit hollows and a gin circle survive at Cackle Mackle; four shaft mounds with ruined coes and windlass stones survive at Stadford Hollow.

Nearby mines

• Arbourseats Veins and Nay Green Mine — 2.1 km W
• Silver Hillocks Mine — 2.3 km E
• Putwell Hill Mine — 2.8 km SW
• Longstone Edge — 3.3 km S
• Seedlow Lead Mine — 3.4 km S

Straight-line distance, within 15 km. Show on the map.

Recorded claims

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

• Cackle Mackle Mine incorporates an important area of bell pits and hollows that could date to the Roman period, and was documented as worked from the mid-17th to the mid-19th century; two well-preserved rakes run east-west for over a kilometre before meeting in a Y-shape at a large shaft. ¹
• Stadford Hollow demonstrates shafts descending in a series called 'Giants Steps', with windlass stones still in position, worked from the very early 16th century to the mid-19th and considered the best example in Derbyshire of a small vertical mine, one of very few now left. ¹
• Underground at Stadford Hollow, short cross-cuts link the bases of climbing shafts with the tops of the next in sequence, together forming a ladderway going deep underground; a wrought-iron bucket recovered from the mine is kept at the Peak District Mining Museum. ¹
• The Cackle Mackle and Stadford Hollow Mines represent a particularly complete and well-preserved multi-period mining area, remarkable for the low levels of mechanisation typical of Derbyshire lead mining into the 19th century. ²

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (primary) Derbyshire HER: Cackle Mackle and Stadford Hollow lead mines, Longstone Moor, Great Longstone (MDR2106) — Derbyshire Historic Environment Record
2. (primary) Cackle Mackle and Stadford Hollow lead mines on Longstone Moor, Wardlow, Derbyshire — AncientMonuments.uk (mirroring the Historic England scheduling record)

Record created: 16 September 2026 · Last researched: 16 September 2026