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. The company was the last of a line: the mine had been in the hands of John Coulson and Co. from 1861 to 1871, the Moralee Mining Co. from 1872 to 1880 and R. R. Hick and Co. in 1881, before the Morallee Fell Mining Co. took it from 1882 and worked it until 1892.

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.

The mine's level lies at West Morralee, a few hundred yards south of the mine, and the workings are noticed in Stanley Smith's 1923 Special Report on the district's lead and zinc ores. Working ended in 1892.

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 says what Morallee Fell found, if anything.

Geological setting: Veins and Lodes (historical documentary reference)

Workings

Unknown. A venture returned as exploring may have had no more than trial levels or shafts, and nothing on record describes any working on the ground.

Closure

Working ended in 1892 under the Morallee Fell Mining Company, the last of four small companies to hold the mine since 1861.

What remains

Unknown.

Related mines

• Holyfield Mine — Two ventures returned in the same 1888 statutory lists as exploring rather than producing — Holyfield on Alston Moor, Morallee Fell across the Tyne at Haydon Bridge — and kept here for the same reason: the archive holds many mines that succeeded and few of the ventures that never got that far.
• 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.

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
• Northern Mine Research Society data has Morallee Fell lead mine worked until 1892 under John Coulson and Co. (1861-71), the Moralee Mining Co. (1872-80), R. R. Hick and Co. (1881) and the Morallee Fell Mining Co. (1882-92), at NY 8040 6368 above Beltingham. ³
• The mine's level, also called Morely Fell or Fell Mine, lies at NY 8042 6354 at West Morralee and is noticed in Stanley Smith's 1923 Special Report on the lead and zinc ores of Northumberland and Alston Moor (pp. 19, 34-35). ⁴

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
3. (secondary) Morallee Fell lead mine (Buddlepit Mine Database, from Northern Mine Research Society data) — Buddlepit / Mining History Trust
4. (secondary) Morralee Fell Mine, level (Buddlepit Mine Database) — Buddlepit / Mining History Trust

Record created: 5 September 2026 · Last researched: 24 September 2026