Mulreesh Lead Mines

Overview

Mulreesh, on Islay, was the best-developed of the island's lead mines and the best-preserved lead-mining site anywhere on Islay today — worked on and off since at least the 14th century, but transformed into a proper modern operation only in the 1870s, when London investors poured capital into what had until then been a struggling, marginal industry.

History

Archaeological evidence for lead mining on Islay dates back to around 1360, and the earliest documentary record comes from 1512, when a royal servant submitted expenses for assaying lead mined on the island; a 1616 patent granted rights to the copper and lead mines of Islay, Mull, Skye and Lewis to Archibald Primrose. Islay's lead was prized for its unusually high silver content, yielding as much as 40 ounces of silver per ton of metal. Working continued on a small scale through the 18th and early 19th centuries — regional production between 1769 and 1774 totalled 260 tons of bar lead — before the Islay Lead Mining Company Ltd, a London-based consortium, was established in 1872 to bring serious modern investment to what had by then become an ailing local industry. The company built a new Cornish pumping engine house and ore-crushing plant at Mulreesh, powered by water from a purpose-built reservoir, and mining continued under this and successor arrangements until around 1900, when the workings finally closed.

Geology

The mine worked lead-bearing veins formed alongside basalt dykes that cut through the limestone of north-east Islay around Mulreesh, part of a distinct west-of-Scotland lead-mining district separate from the larger Leadhills-Wanlockhead orefield in Dumfriesshire.

Geological setting: Hydrothermal Deposits (well documented example), Veins and Lodes (well documented example)

Workings

The Islay Lead Mining Company's 1870s works included a Cornish engine house for pumping and an ore-crushing plant, powered by water stored in a purpose-built rubble-built reservoir; the crushing plant reduced ore before it was washed and graded for sale.

Closure

Mining at Mulreesh ceased around 1900, bringing an end to a lead-mining tradition on Islay that stretched back over five centuries.

What remains

An archaeological survey carried out in the early 1990s found Mulreesh's remains still substantially extant, describing it as the best-preserved mining site on Islay, with the engine house, shafts, building remains and tailings all still visible.

The Mulreesh site retains extensive surface evidence of its 1870s modernisation across the immediate mining area, near Ballygrant.

Abandoned workings can be dangerous — unstable ground, uncapped shafts, flooding and bad air are common even where a site looks safe from the surface. This entry describes history and general location only; it is not an access guide.

Recorded claims

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

• Islay's lead ore yielded as much as 40 ounces of silver per ton of metal, exceptionally high by British standards. ¹

Sources

1. (secondary) Case Study 13: Lead Mining on Islay — Scottish Archaeological Research Framework
2. (primary) Lead and zinc ores of Scotland Area II. Islay, Loch Fyne, Strontian, Loch Sunart and others in Argyllshire — BGS Earthwise

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