Mohopehead Mine

Overview

A small lead mine on the West Allen, driven as an adit by the Beaumont company in 1729 and active in its visible form between the 1820s and the 1850s. Its eight stone bouse teams are reckoned the best preserved in the North Pennines, and the adit still runs as a drainage tunnel.

History

Mohopehead was one of the adit mines of the West Allen, started by the Beaumonts in 1729; between that year and 1878 it produced 4,200 tons of lead concentrates, a modest figure beside the great Allendale mines. The complex whose remains survive was active in the early to mid-19th century, between the 1820s and the 1850s, and belongs to a single phase of working, which is part of why it is so legible on the ground. The mine lies about a mile and a half south-west of Ninebanks on the left bank of the River West Allen.

Geology

The mine worked lead veins in the Carboniferous rocks of the West Allen valley, on the Northumberland side of the Northern Pennine orefield.

Workings

The arched stone portal of the adit stands at the western edge of the site and still works as a drainage tunnel, the stream from it crossing the ground in a narrow channel that keeps its stone flagging in places. Sixteen metres east are the ruins of a stone lodging house with a large hearth at its western end, which suggests it also served as a blacksmith's forge, and immediately west of that a single-pot conical limekiln with one corbelled draw arch. A trackway runs from the adit mouth to a prominent spoil heap on the south-eastern side. The ore works lie to the north-east: a set of eight apsidal bays of squared rubble, each separated by a stepped wall and standing largely to full height, which held the bouse before dressing and are listed Grade II in their own right. In front of their eastern end a low stone platform up to eleven courses high, flagged with large stones, served as a loading platform and as a knock stone on which the ore was broken by hand.

Closure

The visible complex was active between the 1820s and the 1850s, and the production figures for the mine run to 1878. Nothing is recorded of working after that.

What remains

The mine and ore works are a scheduled monument and are well preserved as a good example of a single-phase small mine; the bouse teams are described as the best preserved example in the North Pennines and are separately listed at Grade II. The adit still drains, and the lodging house, limekiln, trackway, spoil heap and loading platform survive.

The arched adit portal and its flagged channel, the ruined lodging house and forge hearth, a single-pot conical limekiln, a trackway, a large spoil heap, eight apsidal bouse teams and the flagged loading platform or knock stone.

Redevelopment

None. The site is rough pasture and moorland beside the West Allen.

Nearby mines

• Carshield Mine — 3.0 km S
• Blagill Mine — 4.2 km SW, Cumbria
• Nentsberry Haggs Mine — 4.5 km S, Cumbria
• Hudgill Burn Mine — 4.9 km S, Cumbria
• Brownley Hill Mine — 5.1 km S, 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.

• Mohopehead, an adit started by the Beaumonts in 1729, produced 4,200 tons of lead concentrates between 1729 and 1878. ¹
• The complex was active in the early to mid-19th century, between the 1820s and the 1850s, and is a good example of a single-phase small mine. ²
• The set of eight apsidal bouse teams, each separated by a stepped wall and standing largely to full height, is the best preserved example in the North Pennines and is listed Grade II. ²
• The arched stone portal of the adit still functions as a drainage tunnel, the stream crossing the site in a narrow channel that retains stone flagging in places. ²

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Lateral Science: A Couple of North Pennines Lead Mine Articles from Mine & Quarry Engineering — Lateral Science
2. (primary) Mohopehead leadmine and ore works, West Allen (List entry 1016349) — Historic England

Record created: 22 September 2026 · Last researched: 22 September 2026