Glendinning (Louisa) Mine

Overview

Britain's first, and probably largest, antimony mine — a short-lived Georgian venture in a remote Southern Uplands valley that built its own purpose-made mining village and was worked in three separate bursts across more than a century.

History

Antimony ore was found at Glendinning in 1788, and Sir James Johnstone of Westerhall opened the Louisa Mine — named, as was common practice, after a family member — in 1793 through his Westerhall Mining Company. In 1794 the company built the mining village of Jamestown nearby to house around forty miners and their families, with the antimony ore smelted close to the village. This first phase of working lasted only until 1798. The mine was reopened twice more, worked from 1888 to around 1891 and then again from 1919 to 1922, but neither later phase matched the original scale, and around 200 tonnes of antimony ore were extracted across all three periods combined. It was, by most accounts, both the first and the largest antimony mine worked in Britain.

Geology

The ore is stibnite, antimony sulphide, worked from veins in the Southern Uplands' Ordovician and Silurian greywackes and shales — a mineralisation style and commodity found at very few other British locations, making Glendinning's ore body a genuine rarity rather than a minor variant of the lead and zinc veins typical of the wider region.

Workings

Three adit levels — known as the High Level, Middle Drift and Low Level — were driven into the hillside and connected underground by blind shafts; the Low Level was the most extensive, with its southern half reached from the surface by three separate shafts. Ore was smelted close to Jamestown rather than shipped out unprocessed.

Closure

Unknown.

What remains

The adits are now flooded and blocked, the Low Level reportedly obstructed only around 100m in; none of the underground workings are accessible. Soil at the site still shows measurably elevated antimony (and arsenic and lead) contamination more than a century after mining ended, a legacy of processing the ore so close to surface.

The explosives magazine — a brick, slate-roofed building — still stands on the south side of Glenshanna Burn, along with spoil tips, the remains of a furnace, and traces of ponds used to wash the ore; foundations of the smelting works survive in the field below.

What's uncertain

Points where sources disagree or the record could not be settled; both accounts are kept. All open questions in the archive.

• The mine's second working phase is dated 1888 to around 1891 in some accounts but 1888-1901 in the Scottish Cave and Mine Database; the exact end date of this phase is not firmly settled. (uncertain) ¹

Recorded claims

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

• The Scottish Cave and Mine Database records the known workings as around 1,000m in total length with some 55m of vertical range, at an altitude of 299m (NGR NY 31309 96665); a mine plan (reference SP1784) shows the full layout of the three linked adits. ¹
• The mine's second working phase is dated 1888 to around 1891 in some accounts but 1888-1901 in the Scottish Cave and Mine Database; the exact end date of this phase is not firmly settled. (uncertain) ¹
• Alongside the primary stibnite ore, the veins also carry semseyite, bournonite and tetrahedrite, with arsenopyrite, pyrite, chalcopyrite, galena and sphalerite commonly present in a quartz-carbonate gangue, hosted in Silurian sandstone of the Hawick Group. ¹

Sources

1. (secondary) Louisa Mine — Scottish Cave and Mine Database — Grampian Speleological Group / Scottish Cave and Mine Database
2. (secondary) Discover the History of the Louisa Mine — Glendinning Farm
3. (secondary) Louisa Mine, Glendinning, Glenshanna Burn, Eskdale, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, UK — Mindat
4. (secondary) Mobility of antimony, arsenic and lead at a former antimony mine, Glendinning, Scotland — Science of the Total Environment
5. (secondary) The archaeology of antimony mining: a resource assessment — National Association of Mining History Organisations

Record created: 21 August 2026 · Last researched: 28 August 2026