Winster Pitts and Drummer's Venture

Overview

Two immediately adjacent but entirely separate lead mines, worked respectively by the people of Winster and Bonsall parishes, met underground at a single adit gated exactly on the parish boundary -- and today preserve the greatest number of ore-washing buddles surviving on any site in the Derbyshire orefield.

History

On the limestone hillside south of Winster village, Winster Pitts and Drummer's Venture were two distinct but immediately adjacent nucleated lead mines, worked from the mid-17th to the mid-19th centuries, with their main period of use falling in the latter half of the 18th century, when Winster was one of the most important mining centres in the Derbyshire orefield. Despite lying side by side, the two mines were entirely separate concerns, worked respectively by the people of Winster and Bonsall parishes -- demonstrated by the fact that an underground adit common to both mines is gated exactly on the parish boundary between them. Ore from both mines was not smelted on site but carted eastward to the area around Matlock, Ashover and Chesterfield, quite possibly along the partly paved packhorse route running south-east from the mine site towards Bonsall. Together the two mines form a complex lead-mining landscape whose surface remains take in both mine workings and ore-processing works, along with the foundations of coes and a possible counting house. The mine workings include a number of discrete shafts with associated winding shafts and platforms for winding gear, a gin circle, and both intact and reworked spoil heaps; the ore works include dressing-waste heaps, leats, ponds, a washing floor and a complex of around 20 buddles used to separate lead ore from unwanted material -- the greatest number surviving on any single site in the Derbyshire orefield. Drummer's Venture itself has a shaft and hillock on the surface and probably a slimes pond in a hollow, with extensive underground pipe-workings partially explored by the North Staffordshire Mining Club; further remains, including shaft mounds and spoil heaps in the surrounding fields, lie outside the scheduled core areas owing to their relative isolation. Drummer's Venture became a scheduled monument on 2 January 1997, valued for its completeness and largely intact condition, its well-preserved gin circle, its rare surviving coes, and its setting within a landscape of field barns and smallholdings characteristic of the mixed mining-and-farming economy of the Derbyshire orefield.

Geology

Two adjacent lead-bearing workings on a limestone hillside, linked underground by a single adit gated on the parish boundary between them.

Workings

Discrete shafts with winding platforms, a gin circle, spoil heaps, a washing floor and around 20 ore-washing buddles -- the greatest number recorded on any Derbyshire orefield site -- plus the foundations of coes and a possible counting house.

Closure

Worked from the mid-17th to the mid-19th centuries, with the main period of use in the latter half of the 18th century.

What remains

Scheduled as a nationally important monument since 2 January 1997; considered a well preserved and well documented nucleated lead-mining complex.

Shafts with winding platforms, a gin circle, intact and reworked spoil heaps, dressing-waste heaps, leats, ponds, a washing floor and around 20 buddles, plus coe and possible counting-house foundations, survive.

Nearby mines

• Winster Mines — 0.6 km NW
• Gorseydale Lead Mines — 1.0 km SE
• Wills Founder Mine — 1.2 km NW
• Beans and Bacon Mine — 1.3 km SE
• Slack, Mount Pleasant and Barmasters Grove Lead Mines — 1.4 km SE

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.

• Winster Pitts and Drummer's Venture were two distinct but immediately adjacent nucleated lead mines worked from the mid-17th to the mid-19th centuries; though adjacent, they were entirely separate concerns worked by the people of Winster and Bonsall parishes respectively, demonstrated by an underground adit common to both being gated on the parish boundary. ¹
• The ore works of the two mines together include dressing waste heaps, leats, ponds, a washing floor and a complex of approximately 20 buddles used in the separation of lead ore from other unwanted materials -- the greatest number of buddles surviving on any site in the Derbyshire orefield. ¹
• Drummer's Venture, adjacent to Pitts Mine, was worked c.1660-1880; the surface has a shaft and hillock and probably a slimes pond in a hollow, with extensive pipe-workings underground partially explored by the North Staffordshire Mining Club, and the remains are visible from and crossed by a public footpath. ²

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (primary) Two lead mines known as Winster Pitts and Drummer's Venture, Winster, Derbyshire — AncientMonuments.uk (mirroring the Historic England scheduling record)
2. (primary) Derbyshire HER: Drummers Venture Lead Mine, south of Winster Primary School, Winster (MDR8377) — Derbyshire Historic Environment Record

Record created: 16 September 2026 · Last researched: 16 September 2026