Froggatt Wood Smelt Mill

Overview

Froggatt Wood's 16th- or 17th-century smelt mill, with no documentary record of its own existence at all, is one of only a handful in England from this period still standing above ground -- its water-fed wood-drying kiln unique anywhere in the lead industry.

History

In woodland on the eastern side of the Derwent valley near Froggatt, a lead smelt mill and its associated structures survive within two conjoined drystone-walled enclosures. Water for the mill was drawn from a pond and dam on the site's east side, carried by a channel of shaped stone blocks; the smelt mill itself survives as a ruined, rubble-filled building running east-west, with a wheelpit visible at its eastern end. West of the building, tips of slag run down the hillslope, and a broken stone mould once used for casting pigs of lead lies nearby. South-east of the mill stands an unusually complex stone wood-drying kiln, used to dry wood for fuelling the mill's ore hearth -- a feature unique within the English lead industry. Remarkably, no documentary reference to this smelting mill has ever been found. A map of 1799 omits it altogether, though it shows the site lay within an area called The Hay, inside the Rutland estate boundary; on that same estate, one otherwise unprovenanced smelting mill in Baslow lordship is known to have been built by John Bromhead of Bubnell by 1639, but no firm connection has been established between Bromhead's mill and the site in Froggatt Wood. The character of the surviving remains points to a 16th- or 17th-century date regardless. Large quantities of slag from both ore hearth and slag hearth survive south-west and north-west of the mill, and a white-coal kiln with well-preserved internal stonework stands south-east of the mill, with a platform beside it from which fuel could be carried to the smelting mill. Froggatt Wood was first scheduled in April 1977, with its scheduling amended in March 1997, and is valued as one of very few 16th- or 17th-century smelt mills in England to retain any standing structures at all -- its water channel and wood-drying kiln considered unique features within the lead industry, its survival as an undisturbed complex of this early date exceptionally rare.

Geology

A lead ore-hearth smelting site processing ore from the wider Peak District orefield, not itself an extraction working.

Workings

A ruined smelt-mill building with a wheelpit, a pond and dam with a shaped-stone water channel, slag tips, a stone lead-pig casting mould, and an unusually complex stone wood-drying kiln with an adjacent white-coal kiln.

Closure

No reliable closure date has yet been located; no documentary reference to the mill has ever been found, and it is absent even from a 1799 estate map of the area in which it stood.

What remains

Scheduled as a nationally important monument since 1977 (amended 1997); on National Trust land within a National Park, considered one of very few standing 16th/17th-century smelt mills in England.

A ruined smelt-mill building with a visible wheelpit, a pond and dam, a shaped-stone water channel, slag tips, a broken lead-pig casting mould, a wood-drying kiln and an adjacent white-coal kiln survive.

Nearby mines

• Nickergrove Mine — 2.2 km SW
• Bolehill Quarry — 2.3 km N
• Ladywash Mine — 2.4 km W
• Little Brookhead Mine — 2.8 km W
• Sallet Hole Mine — 2.9 km SW

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 smelt mill itself survives as a ruined building, orientated east-west, within which a wheelpit is visible at the east end; to the west, tips of slag extend down the hillslope, and a broken stone mould for pouring pigs of lead lies nearby, with an unusually complex stone wood-drying kiln to the south east used to dry wood for the ore hearth. ¹
• There are no documentary references to this smelting mill; a map of 1799 omits it, but shows it must have lain within an area named The Hay, within the Rutland estate boundary, where one otherwise unprovenanced smelting mill in Baslow lordship was built by John Bromhead of Bubnell by 1639, though no firm connection has been established between Bromhead's mill and the Froggatt Wood site. ²
• The Froggatt Wood smelt mill is one of the very few 16th-17th century smelt mills in England to retain any standing structures; the water channel and wood-drying kiln are unique within the lead industry, and the survival of an undisturbed complex of this date, with a wide range of features, is very rare. ¹

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (primary) Lead smelt mill and wood-drying kiln in Froggatt Wood, 550m south of Haywood Farm, Grindleford, Derbyshire — AncientMonuments.uk (mirroring the Historic England scheduling record)
2. (primary) Derbyshire HER: Froggatt Wood Smelt Mill, Froggatt (MDR3951) — Derbyshire Historic Environment Record

Record created: 17 September 2026 · Last researched: 17 September 2026