Morallee Fell Mine

Overview

Morallee Fell appears in the 1888 List of Mines among the lead, barytes and whinstone mines of Northumberland, at Haydon Bridge, under the Morallee Fell Mining Company — and against the column where the other entries name a mineral, its says only 'Exploring'. It is the record of a venture that had raised a company and taken a name but had not yet found anything to sell, on ground where its neighbours were doing well.

History

The 1888 List of Mines under the Metalliferous Mines Act enters Morallee Fell at Haydon Bridge, owned by the Morallee Fell Mining Company of Haydon Bridge, with 'Exploring' where the other entries in the same list record lead ore, barytes or whinstone. That is the whole of what is known here about the venture: a company, a name, a place and a state of not yet having found anything. The ground it was exploring was not unpromising. Haydon Bridge sits on the South Tyne at the northern edge of the lead country, and the lead-bearing estates around it — forfeited to the Crown by the Earl of Derwentwater after the Jacobite rising of 1715 and assigned to the Greenwich Hospital in 1735 — had been smelting their own ore at Langley since 1768, in a mill the Hospital built rather than keep sending the ore to the London Lead Company at Nenthead. Langley Barony, the largest of the mines around Haydon Bridge, was in the same 1888 return under Bewick and Partners, and was then within a few years of its peak. Whether Morallee Fell ever became a mine is not recorded in anything read for this account. The 1888 return is the only entry found for it.

Geology

This is the northern edge of the North Pennine orefield, where lead is carried in near-vertical veins cutting a Carboniferous sequence of limestones, sandstones and shales, with barytes in the same veins and the quartz-dolerite of the Whin Sill outcropping across the district — which is why the 1888 Northumberland list groups lead ore, barytes and whinstone in a single return. What a venture exploring this ground was looking for could have been any of the three. No source read for this record says what Morallee Fell found, if anything.

Geological setting: Veins and Lodes (historical documentary reference)

Workings

Not established. A venture returned as exploring may have had no more than trial levels or shafts, and nothing read for this record describes any working on the ground.

Closure

No closure date has been established, and it is not established that the venture ever opened in the ordinary sense. It was exploring in 1888 and does not appear in any later return read for this record.

What remains

Not established. No dated site report or photograph of this working has been found.

Not established. Nothing read for this record describes what, if anything, survives.

Related mines

• Langley Barony Mine — Both were returned in the 1888 Northumberland list at Haydon Bridge, on the same lead-bearing ground of the old Greenwich Hospital estate — Langley Barony under Bewick and Partners and within a few years of its peak output, Morallee Fell still only exploring.

Nearby mines

• Langley Barony Mine — 1.5 km SW
• Water House Mine — 3.0 km NW
• Settlingstones Mine — 3.5 km NE
• Stonecroft and Greyside Mine — 6.4 km N
• Church Burn Mine — 9.1 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 1888 List of Mines under the Metalliferous Mines Act records Morallee Fell at Haydon Bridge with the remark 'Exploring', owned by the Morallee Fell Mining Co. of Haydon Bridge. ¹
• The estates of the Earl of Derwentwater were forfeited to the Crown after the 1715 Jacobite Rebellion and assigned to the Greenwich Hospital in 1735; ore was initially sold back to the London Lead Company and smelted at Nenthead, but in 1768 the Greenwich Hospital built its own smeltmill at Langley. ²

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (primary) 1888 List of Mines under the Metalliferous Mines Act: Lead Ore, Barytes, and Whinstone Mines in Northumberland — Mines Department, via the Durham Mining Museum
2. (primary) Langley and Blagill lead smeltmills, flue and chimney, Haydon (scheduled monument 1018211) — Historic England, via Ancient Monuments UK

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