Carshield Mine

Overview

Carrshield sits in West Allendale in the North Pennines, and the mining around it runs through three centuries. The Beaumont Lead Company opened the Barney Craig Horse Level in the 1770s and it stayed in use through the nineteenth century, when the mine was the centre of a community of more than five hundred. By 1880 the lead was regarded as exhausted; in 1899 the Belgian firm Vieille Montagne reopened the workings for zinc and worked them until 1913. The 1914 statutory return still enters Carshield under that company with eighty-eight men underground.

History

The visible remains of the lead industry at Carrshield represent several phases of working over three centuries. The earliest known activity is the Barney Craig Horse Level, opened by the Beaumont Lead Company in the 1770s and continued in use throughout the nineteenth century. At its height the mine was the centre of a large community. It employed more than five hundred people at one time, and in 1861 there were forty-four houses in the Coalcleugh and Carrshield area, most of the farms round about occupied by miners or smelters and others connected with the mine. There was not enough private accommodation for the workforce, and many men lived in scattered smallholdings, so the company provided lodging shops. The Barney Craig mine shop is the biggest in the North Pennines: besides somewhere for the miners to eat and sleep it held two blacksmiths' forges and other workshops. The chief agent of the London Lead Company, writing of Alston Moor in 1857, caught the character of such places — the population was so mixed up, the farming with the mining, that they were almost all as one. By 1880 the lead deposit was regarded as exhausted. In 1899 the Vieille Montagne Zinc Company reopened the workings to mine for zinc ore, and mining continued until 1913. The 1914 List of Mines nonetheless still enters Carshield at West Allendale under Vieille Montagne of Nenthead, working lead ore and zinc ore, with eighty-eight men underground and two at surface — a substantial return for a mine generally described as having stopped the year before, and the two statements are recorded here side by side rather than reconciled. Further reworking of the deposits was carried out in 1950 by the Allendale Metalliferous Mining Company.

Geology

This is the North Pennine orefield, where lead occurs in near-vertical veins cutting a Carboniferous sequence of limestones, sandstones and shales, and is richest where a vein crosses a competent bed. Zinc, as sphalerite, sits alongside the galena in the same veins, and it is the reason the ground had a second life: the nineteenth-century lead miners left the zinc as waste, and when the lead was worked out the zinc was still there for a company that wanted it. Witherite and barytes occur in the same district. During the 18th and 19th centuries Britain was the main producer of lead in the world, the North Pennines was the main lead-producing area in Britain, and about a third of the country's lead came from this ground.

Geological setting: Veins and Lodes (well documented example)

Workings

The Barney Craig Horse Level, driven from the 1770s, is the earliest known working and remained in use through the nineteenth century — a horse level being one driven large enough to bring wagons out by horse rather than by hand. Around it are the ore works and dressing floors whose remains survive by the West Allen, and the Barney Craig mine shop, the largest miners' lodging shop in the North Pennines, which held two blacksmiths' forges and workshops as well as sleeping and eating quarters. The 1914 return's eighty-eight men underground against two at surface indicates the Vieille Montagne working was almost entirely below ground.

Closure

Two endings, and they do not quite agree. The lead deposit was regarded as exhausted by 1880, and the zinc working that the Vieille Montagne Zinc Company began in 1899 is described as continuing until 1913 — yet the statutory return for 1914 still enters the mine under that company with eighty-eight men underground. Both are recorded. There was a further reworking of the deposits in 1950 by the Allendale Metalliferous Mining Company.

What remains

Carrshield is surrounded by fell ground littered with old disused mines, and the remnants of the old stone works where the lead was dressed can still be seen next to the river. The lead mines and ore works have been photographed in recent years, and a disused reservoir survives among them.

The ore works and dressing floors beside the West Allen, a disused reservoir, and the Barney Craig mine shop — the largest miners' lodging shop in the North Pennines, with two blacksmiths' forges and other workshops within it. The wider fell is scattered with the remains of the several phases of working.

Related mines

• Nentsbury Mine — Both were held by the Vieille Montagne Zinc Company, which bought up the Alston Moor leases in 1896 and reopened the worked-out lead ground at Carrshield for zinc in 1899. The two are a few miles apart across the Cumberland-Northumberland watershed and appear in successive statutory returns under the same Belgian owner.
• Rodderup Fell Mine — Two of the Vieille Montagne company's North Pennine mines, taken up within a few years of its arrival in 1896 — Carrshield reopened for zinc in 1899, Rotherhope Fell's lease bought in 1900 — and worked by it until the company left England in 1949.

Nearby mines

• Nentsberry Haggs Mine — 1.7 km SW, Cumbria
• Blagill Mine — 2.4 km W, Cumbria
• Brownley Hill Mine — 2.6 km SE, Cumbria
• Nenthead Mines — 3.6 km SE, Cumbria
• Smallcleugh Mine — 3.8 km SE, Cumbria

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.

• The visible remains at Carrshield represent several phases of mining over three centuries, the earliest known activity being the Barney Craig Horse level, opened during the 1770s and continued in use throughout the 19th century. ¹
• The mine was the centre of a huge community and at one time employed more than 500 people; in 1861 there were 44 houses in the Coalcleugh and Carrshield area. ¹
• The mining company provided lodging shops for men who could not be housed privately, and the Barney Craig mine shop is the biggest in the North Pennines, containing two blacksmiths' forges and other workshops as well as sleeping and eating quarters. ¹
• By 1880 the lead deposit was regarded as exhausted, but in 1899 the Vieille Montagne Zinc Co reopened the workings to mine for zinc ore and mining continued until 1913. (disputed) ¹
• The 1914 List of Mines records Carshield at West Allendale under the Vieille Montagne Zinc Co. of Nenthead, working lead ore and zinc ore, with 88 employed underground and 2 at surface. (disputed) ²
• Further reworking of the deposits was carried out in 1950 by the Allendale Metalliferous Mining Company. ¹
• Carrshield is surrounded by fell ground littered with old disused mines, and the remnants of the old stone works where the lead was mined can still be seen next to the river. ³

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Steeped in history — Carrshield Village Hall
2. (primary) 1914 List of Mines under the Metalliferous Mines Act: Northumberland — Durham Mining Museum
3. (observational) Carrshield lead mines and ore works (photograph) — Geograph Britain and Ireland

Record created: 5 September 2026 · Last researched: 5 September 2026