White Grit Mine

Overview

White Grit, part of the Shelve orefield beneath the Stiperstones, claims a genuinely Roman pedigree — a lead pig stamped for the Emperor Hadrian was found there — and preserves what may be one of the oldest Boulton & Watt engine houses left standing anywhere in the country.

History

Lead has been worked intermittently at White Grit since medieval times, and old workings were already recorded there in 1678. Famously, a pig of lead stamped for the Emperor Hadrian was found on the site, evidence of Roman-period working. The mine's main periods of activity ran from around 1830 to 1848, with the wider 'Grit Sett' — fourteen shafts across the district, ten of them at White Grit itself — worked until abandonment around 1870. An engine house dated to 1783, built for a Boulton & Watt engine, survives on the site and is thought to be among the oldest Watt-type engine houses left anywhere in Britain.

Geology

The mine worked lead veins — chiefly galena, alongside steel-grained ore and occasionally white spatous ore — within the Shelve orefield of the Stiperstones hills, a hydrothermal mineralised belt hosted in Ordovician rocks distinct from the granite-related lodes of Cornwall.

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

Workings

The wider Grit Sett included fourteen shafts, ten of them sunk at White Grit itself; an engine house dated to 1783 housed a 30-inch Boulton & Watt beam pumping engine, among the earliest of its type recorded anywhere in the country.

Closure

The wider Grit Sett was abandoned around 1870, following White Grit's main working periods between 1830 and 1848.

What remains

The 1783 engine house survives, though the shaft it served is completely blocked; further shaft remains survive across the wider Grit Sett.

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.

• A pig of lead stamped for the Emperor Hadrian was found on the site, evidence of Roman-period working; old workings were already recorded there in 1678. ^1,2
• The wider Grit Sett included fourteen shafts, ten of them sunk at White Grit itself; the surviving 1783 engine house housed a 30-inch Boulton & Watt beam pumping engine. ^1,3

Images

Sources

1. (secondary) White Grit Mine - Stiperstones — Stiperstones and Corndon Hill Country Landscape Partnership
2. (secondary) White Grit — Wikipedia
3. (primary) Leigh Level, Blue, Blue Barn, Dingle, Foxhole, Grit East, Lady, Well, Milne, Rider, Roman, Gravels, White Grit, Wood mine plans (BGS Mine Plans Catalogue) — British Geological Survey / The Coal Authority

Record created: 23 August 2026 · Last researched: 23 August 2026