Nentsbury Mine

Overview

Nentsbury was one of the Alston Moor mines held by the Belgian zinc combine Vieille Montagne, which bought up the moor's leases in 1896 and made Nenthead the centre of its British operations. It was a substantial working: the 1930 List of Mines records 108 men underground at Nentsbury, the largest workforce of any mine in that year's Cumberland return.

History

The first documented mining on Alston Moor dates from the twelfth century, and major ore extraction seems to have begun at Nenthead in the seventeenth, with the discovery of the Rampgill Vein in 1690. Nentsbury lies in the same small radius of ground that took in Nenthead, Coalcleugh and Rotherhope.

The Société Anonyme des Mines et Fonderies de Zinc de la Vieille-Montagne, of Belgium, came to Alston Moor in 1896 to take up the leases of a failed company, buying the mineral leases, mines, royalties, mills, works and machinery. After a few years of vigorous exploratory trials — which reached as far as Hafna and Holway in Flintshire and Llangynog in Montgomeryshire — the company concentrated on the ground around Nenthead, the village on the watershed between Cumberland and Northumberland. It got its zinc ore both by mining and by reprocessing the old waste dumps left by the lead miners, and Nenthead became the centre of Vieille Montagne's operations in Britain, producing sixty per cent of the United Kingdom's zinc ore.

The 1930 List of Mines enters Nentsbury at Alston under the Vieille Montagne Zinc Co. with A. Treloar as agent and 108 men underground, working lead ore — the largest workforce in that year's Cumberland return, and larger than the eighty-eight the same company had underground at Carshield in West Allendale in 1914.

The company survived two world wars, the economic slump of the late 1920s and the ordinary swings of the metal market, and left England in 1949.

Geology

Alston Moor holds some of the largest lead and zinc deposits in Britain, in the mineralised Carboniferous block of the North Pennine orefield, where the ore is carried in near-vertical veins cutting limestones, sandstones and shales and is richest where a vein crosses a competent bed. The Rampgill Vein, found in 1690, is the vein that opened the Nenthead ground. The point that matters for this mine's history is that lead and zinc sit together in those veins: the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century lead miners threw the zinc blende on the dumps as waste, which is why a zinc company arriving in 1896 could make a business out of reworking their spoil as well as mining fresh ground.

Geological setting: Veins and Lodes (well documented example)

Workings

Underground working on a substantial scale — 108 men below ground in 1930 against no recorded surface workforce in that return. Vieille Montagne's operation across the moor combined mining with the reprocessing of old lead-era waste dumps, and its dressing was centred on the mill at Nenthead. Nothing on record describes Nentsbury's own shafts, levels or dressing arrangements.

Closure

The closure date is not known for this mine. Vieille Montagne left England in 1949, which is the outside limit for its working under that company; the mine was still returning 108 men underground in 1930. Nothing on record narrows it further.

What remains

Unknown. No dated site report or photograph of Nentsbury itself is recorded. The wider Nenthead ground is well known — the Nenthead Mines Conservation Society maintains the site of the company's operations there — but that is the neighbouring ground, not this mine.

Unknown. Nothing on record describes what survives at Nentsbury.

Related mines

• Carshield Mine — Both were held by the Vieille Montagne Zinc Company, which bought up the Alston Moor leases in 1896 and reopened the worked-out lead ground at Carrshield for zinc in 1899. The two are a few miles apart across the Cumberland-Northumberland watershed and appear in successive statutory returns under the same Belgian owner.
• Rodderup Fell Mine — Both were worked by Vieille Montagne on Alston Moor, and both appear in the 1930 Cumberland return under the company's Nenthead office with A. Treloar as agent — 38 men underground here against 108 at Nentsbury.

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 BGS mine-plans catalogue holds a BGS plan titled 'Nentsbury Mine' (catalogue CT158, dated 1956); the catalogue gives no location and the plan's details do not clearly tie it to this working, so it may belong to another of the same name. (uncertain) ³

Recorded claims

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

• The 1930 List of Mines records Nentsbury at Alston under the Vieille Montagne Zinc Co. of Nenthead, with A. Treloar as agent and 108 men employed underground, working lead ore. ¹
• The Société Anonyme des Mines et Fonderies de Zinc de la Vieille-Montagne of Belgium came to Alston Moor in 1896 to take up the leases of a failed company, and after a few years of exploratory trials concentrated on the area around Nenthead; its mines of zinc and lead were all in a small radius encompassing Nenthead, Coalcleugh, Rotherhope and Nentsbury. ²
• Nenthead was the centre of Vieille Montagne's operations in Britain, from where 60% of the UK's output of zinc ore was produced; the company left England in 1949. ²
• The BGS mine-plans catalogue holds a BGS plan titled 'Nentsbury Mine' (catalogue CT158, dated 1956); the catalogue gives no location and the plan's details do not clearly tie it to this working, so it may belong to another of the same name. (uncertain) ³

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (primary) 1930 List of Mines under the Metalliferous Mines Act: Cumberland — Durham Mining Museum
2. (secondary) The Vieille Montagne Zinc Mining Company: mining sites — Alston Moor Historical Society
3. (primary) BGS / Mining Remediation Authority mine plans: NENTSBURY MINE — British Geological Survey / Mining Remediation Authority

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