Dowpot Syke and Guttergill Mine

Overview

Dowpot Syke and Guttergill are two adjacent lead workings on Alston Moor, near Garrigill, listed together as a single mine in the 1888 List of Mines — and, confusingly, entered twice in that list with the two names in either order. Both were already named lead groves two centuries earlier: they appear in surveys of the Derwentwater estate mines drawn up for the Greenwich Hospital commissioners in 1735 and again in 1737, among a long list of Alston Moor workings that included Guttergill, Dowpott Syke head and the moss on its eastern side.

History

Alston Moor's lead grounds passed to the Greenwich Hospital after the Derwentwater estates were forfeited following the 1715 rising, and the surveys the Hospital's officers drew up in the 1730s are the earliest documentary appearance of these two workings. John Watson's memorial to Thomas Corbett of 18 July 1735 lists Guttergill and Dowpott Syke head — and, separately, the moss on the east side of Dowpott Syke head — among the groves of the estate. Nicholas Walton's letter to William Corbett of 14 October 1737 lists both again. Watson's memorial is also a window on how the ground was held and worked: proprietors either worked the mines themselves or granted tack notes and leases to adventurers who paid no fixed rent but a fifth, sixth or seventh dish of all well-washed ore, the Derwentwater family having generally used the latter method at a fifth. A lessee who failed to work with four men a day for twenty days in a year — Sundays, holy days and violent storms excepted — forfeited the lease and paid twenty shillings a month for the discontinuance. Watson proposed tightening this to eight pickmen with monthly written returns of every miner employed, and a forfeiture of the lease plus £9 for every week of hushing without written licence, on the grounds that though hushing was an easy way to get ore it did damage to all mines and veins for later adventurers. By 1888 the two names were still being worked as one concern.

The Northern Mine Research Society's data, through the Buddlepit database, fills in the 19th-century companies. Dowpot Syke Level was worked by Wm Leach & Co. from 1859 to 1866, John Carruthers & Co. from 1867 to 1884, James Dixon & Co. from 1887 to 1890 and the Horse Edge Mining Co. in 1891-92, after which the level was given up. Guttergill was in two hands: the East End under Wm Bowcock & Co. from 1859 to 1870 and John Carruthers in 1871-76 and 1883-84, abandoned in 1884, and the West End under John Davidson & Co. from 1859 until its abandonment in 1873. A small coal mine under the Guttergill name was worked on the same ground from 1900 to 1920.

Geology

The workings lie in the Alston Block, the central portion of the Northern Pennine Orefield, where lead ores occur in mineral veins occupying faults through the Carboniferous sequence. Nothing is recorded of the specific veins at Dowpot Syke or Guttergill. The names themselves are those of the becks and gills the workings follow, which is the usual pattern on Alston Moor, where a vein was commonly named for the water that first exposed it.

Geological setting: Veins and Lodes (historical documentary reference)

Workings

Nothing is recorded of the workings. The 1735 memorial's concern with hushing on the estate — and its proposal to fine lessees £9 a week for hushing without licence, because of the damage it did to the sills of a vein for later working — indicates that surface hushing was in common use on these grounds at the time, whether or not it was practised at these two particular groves.

Closure

Dowpot Syke Level was worked until 1892, Guttergill East End until 1884 and Guttergill West End until 1873; a small coal mine under the Guttergill name followed in 1900-20.

What remains

Nothing is recorded of the present state of the workings.

Recorded claims

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

• Guttergill and Dowpott Syke head are both named among the lead groves of the Derwentwater estate on Alston Moor in John Watson's memorial to Thomas Corbett of 18 July 1735, which also separately lists the moss on the east side of Dowpott Syke head. ¹
• Both Dowpot Syke and Guttergill appear again in Nicholas Walton's letter to William Corbett of 14 October 1737. ²
• Adventurers on the Derwentwater grounds paid no fixed rent but a fifth, sixth or seventh dish of all well-washed ore, the family generally taking a fifth; a lessee who failed to work with four men a day for twenty days in a year, Sundays, holy days and violent storms excepted, forfeited the lease and paid twenty shillings a month for the discontinuance. ¹
• Watson proposed a forfeiture of the lease and £9 for every week a lessee hushed a mine without written licence, on the grounds that though hushing was an easy way to get ore it damaged all mines and veins for later adventurers unless the sills were left entire. ¹
• The 1888 List of Mines for Cumberland enters the pairing twice, as 'Dowpot Syke and Guttergill' and as 'Guttergill & Dowpot Syke', at Alston. ³
• A Cumbria Amenity Trust plan of the Alston Moor mines from the Nent to the Tyne, held by the British Geological Survey (CT179) and viewable online, names Dowpott Mine among them with Bayle Hill, Farneberry, Holyfield, Nattrass, Far Hill, Flow Edge, Craggs Green and Hudgill Burn. ⁴
• Northern Mine Research Society data places Dowpot Syke Level at 54.792263, -2.410853 (NY 7368 4423), 430 metres up, worked until 1892 by Wm Leach & Co. (1859-66), John Carruthers & Co. (1867-84), James Dixon & Co. (1887-90) and the Horse Edge Mining Co. (1891-92), with Dowpot Syke Low Level at NY 7359 4412; the entries cite Fairbairn's Mines of Alston Moor (British Mining 47). ⁵
• Guttergill Level lies at NY 7382 4409; Guttergill East End, worked until 1884, was held by Wm Bowcock & Co. (1859-70) and John Carruthers (1871-76, 1883-84), and Guttergill West End, worked until 1873, by John Davidson & Co. (1859-77). A Guttergill coal mine on the same ground was worked from 1900 to 1920 by the Vieille Montagne Zinc Co., John Edgar and Herbert Richardson. ⁶

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (primary) Letter, John Watson to Thomas Corbett, 18 July 1735 (TNA ADM 66/105) — Dukesfield Smelters and Carriers Project, from The National Archives
2. (primary) Letter, Nicholas Walton to William Corbett, 14 October 1737 (TNA ADM 66/105) — Dukesfield Smelters and Carriers Project, from The National Archives
3. (primary) 1888 List of Mines under the Metalliferous Mines Act: Lead Ore, Zinc Ore, and Barytes Mines in Cumberland — Mines Department, via the Durham Mining Museum
4. (primary) ALSTON MOOR MINE, BAYLE HILL MINE, FARNEBERRY MINE, HOLYFIELD MINE, NATTRASS MINE, FAR HILL MINE, FLOW EDGE MINE, DOWPOTT MINE, CRAGGS GREEN MINE, HUDGILL BURN MINE (Cumbrian Amenity Trust Historical — British Geological Survey / Mining Remediation Authority
5. (secondary) Dowpot Syke Level (Buddlepit Mine Database, from Northern Mine Research Society data) — Buddlepit / Mining History Trust
6. (secondary) Guttergill East End, West End and Level (Buddlepit Mine Database, from Northern Mine Research Society data) — Buddlepit / Mining History Trust

Record created: 4 September 2026 · Last researched: 24 September 2026