Troutbeck Park Green Slate Works

Overview

A small Lakeland green slate working at Troutbeck Park above Windermere, employing thirteen people in 1883 and standing by 1894. Two miners were killed there in February 1887 by one fall of rock, while they were preparing to put a shot into it — half the recorded workforce of four years earlier, in a single accident.

History

The works appear in the returns from 1883 under the Troutbeck Park Green Slate Co. Ltd of Windermere, with thirteen people employed. The output is entered simply as slate in 1883, 1884 and 1890, and as green slate in 1888, 1890 and 1894 — the Borrowdale Volcanic stone that gives Lakeland its characteristic slate, quarried and mined across Langdale, Coniston and Kentmere.

On 21 February 1887 two miners, John Rowlandson, twenty-nine, and Joseph Woodcock, thirty, were killed together when a large piece of rock fell on them as they prepared to put a shot into it (see Disasters, below). By 1894 the return is marked standing, and the works do not appear again.

The 1888 List of Mines under the Metalliferous Mines Act records it as the only slate mine in the country's return that year outside Langdale, where the Elterwater Green Slate Company and its neighbours held nine of the ten entries.

Geology

The works took the green slate of the Borrowdale Volcanic Group, a Lakeland stone formed from volcanic ash compacted and cleaved by later earth movement, which splits along the cleavage rather than the bedding and takes a colour ranging from pale green to olive. It is a roofing and building slate of high quality, worked across the central fells, and at Troutbeck it was won from the fellside at the head of the Troutbeck valley.

Geological setting: Slate and Regional Metamorphism (well documented example)

Workings

Nothing of the layout is recorded in the returns beyond the scale: thirteen people in 1883. The 1887 accident places two men working at a face, drilling to put a shot into rock that came down on them, so at least part of the working was won by blasting.

Closure

The 1894 return is marked standing, and the works do not appear in the returns again.

What remains

Nothing is recorded of what survives of the works. Troutbeck Park itself is a fell farm at the head of the Troutbeck valley, bought by Beatrix Potter in the 1920s; a cottage there was built in that decade for a shepherd she employed.

Redevelopment

Unknown.

Disasters & major incidents

• Troutbeck Park Fall of Rock, 1887
  21 February 1887 · Collapse / Roof Fall · 2 fatalities
  Two miners at the Troutbeck Park green slate works, John Rowlandson and Joseph Woodcock, were killed on 21 February 1887 by a large piece of rock which fell on them while they were preparing to put a shot into it. The works had employed thirteen people four years earlier.

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 Mining Remediation Authority abandonment plan titled 'Troutbeck' (catalogue OMR274C, Lead Ore, undated in the catalogue); 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.

• Thirteen people were employed in 1883; the 1894 return is marked standing. ¹
• In the 1888 List of Mines' return of slate mines, Troutbeck Park is the only entry outside Langdale, where nine of the ten workings listed lay. ²
• The output is returned as slate in 1883, 1884 and 1890 and as green slate in 1888, 1890 and 1894. ¹
• The BGS mine-plans catalogue holds a Mining Remediation Authority abandonment plan titled 'Troutbeck' (catalogue OMR274C, Lead Ore, undated in the catalogue); 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) Troutbeck Park Green Slate Works — Durham Mining Museum
2. (primary) 1888 List of Mines under the Metalliferous Mines Act: Slate Mines — Mines Department, via the Durham Mining Museum
3. (primary) BGS / Mining Remediation Authority mine plans: TROUTBECK — British Geological Survey / Mining Remediation Authority

Record created: 4 September 2026 · Last researched: 4 September 2026