Sun Hush Mine

Overview

Sun Hush was one of the Old Gang Mining Company's workings in Gunnerside Gill, returned in the 1888 List of Mines under John Reynoldson as agent. Its name records how the ground was prospected: a hush, where water dammed on the moor above was released in a wave to tear the soil and loose rock off a hillside and lay the vein bare. The level driven afterwards, its spoil heaps and the ruins of its storeroom and mine office still show plainly across the gill.

History

The 1888 List of Mines under the Metalliferous Mines Act enters Sun Hush in Swaledale, with John Reynoldson as agent and the Old Gang Mining Company Limited of Fremington, Richmond, as owner — the same company and the same agent the same return gives for the Sir Francis Level a little way down the gill. Nothing else specific to Sun Hush has been established here: no opening date, no output, no closure. The name itself is the clearest thing about it. A hush is prospecting by controlled flood — a dam built on the moor above, filled, and then broken so that the released water scours the hillside down to rock, exposing any vein it crosses and washing the lighter waste away. Gunnerside Gill is one of the best places in Britain to see what that did to a landscape: Bunton Hush, North Hush and the rest cut great raw gashes down the fellsides on both sides of the beck. What followed a successful hush was usually a level driven in at the foot of it, and Sun Hush Level is what the maps and the ground record now.

Geology

The Swaledale mines worked near-vertical mineral veins cutting the Carboniferous limestones, sandstones and shales of the northern Pennines, carrying galena with barytes, calcite and fluorite as gangue. In Gunnerside Gill the same veins were attacked from both sides of the beck: the Lownathwaite mines a little upstream of Sun Hush recorded nine minerals from their Dolly Level alone — barytes, calcite, chalcopyrite, fluorite, galena, malachite, pyrite, sphalerite and strontianite. What made hushing worth doing here is that the veins outcrop on steep ground, where a release of water could strip the cover from them faster than men with picks.

Geological setting: Veins and Lodes (historical documentary reference)

Workings

A hush and the level driven from it. The spoil heaps below Sun Hush Level run down towards Gunnerside Gill and are the most visible thing about the working from the opposite bank; nothing read for this record gives the level's length, depth or workforce.

Closure

No closure date has been established. The Old Gang company's Swaledale workings ran down through the collapse of British lead in the 1880s and 1890s, and this one was still returned in 1888.

What remains

The remains of the storeroom, mine office and miners' accommodation associated with Sun Hush Level are plainly visible from Swina Bank on the opposite side of the gill, flagged by the spoil heaps projecting down towards the beck.

Spoil heaps running down to Gunnerside Gill, and the ruined buildings above them — storeroom, mine office and miners' accommodation — among the wider scatter of hushes, levels, dressing floors and the Blakethwaite smelt mill and peat store that make this one of the most complete lead-mining landscapes in the Dales.

Related mines

• Sir Francis Level (Lownathwaite Mine) — Both were returned in the 1888 List of Mines under the Old Gang Mining Company Limited of Fremington with the same agent, John Reynoldson, and both worked the same ground in Gunnerside Gill — Sun Hush a hush and its level on the fellside, Sir Francis the deep level driven below the gill to reach the same veins.

Nearby mines

• Arn Gill Mine — 3.3 km S
• Swinnergill Mine — 3.5 km W, Yorkshire
• West Stonesdale Mine — 4.2 km W, Yorkshire
• Beldi Hill Mine — 4.4 km SW, Yorkshire
• Blakethwaite Mine — 5.2 km E

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 records Sun Hush in Swaledale with John Reynoldson as agent and the Old Gang Mining Co., Ltd. of Fremington, Richmond, as owner. ¹
• The remains of the storeroom, mine office and miners' accommodation associated with the Sun Hush Level are plainly visible from Swina Bank on the opposing riverbank, flagged by the numerous spoil heaps projecting down to Gunnerside Gill. ²
• Nine different minerals have been recorded from the Dolly Level at Lownathwaite, a little upstream: barytes, calcite, chalcopyrite, fluorite, galena, malachite, pyrite, sphalerite and strontianite. ²

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (primary) 1888 List of Mines under the Metalliferous Mines Act: Lead Mines (Durham District) — Mines Department, via the Durham Mining Museum
2. (secondary) Lownathwaite, Gunnerside, Swaledale — the mines and remains of Gunnerside Gill — Coast to Coast (Yorkshire Dales trail guide)

Record created: 5 September 2026 · Last researched: 6 September 2026