MineArchiveBelland Yard
| Dialect | Derbyshire |
|---|---|
| Category | Structures & Machinery |
A walled enclosure built around a Derbyshire lead mine's ore-dressing ground to keep cattle and horses away from 'belland' -- waste contaminated with lead and other toxic minerals, capable of killing livestock that grazed on it or drank water that had washed through it.
Historical usage
Belland yards are recorded at mines across the Derbyshire orefield, among them Bondog Hole on Middleton Moor, where a ruinous terraced and walled belland yard survives on top of a large hillock alongside a dressing floor and the site of a gin circle, and at several of the mines on Carsington Pasture and in Tansley Dale. The underlying hazard, belland, gave its name to Belland Lane near the restored smelter at Spitewinter, close to Chesterfield. In the 1680s, giving evidence in a dispute over ore-washing, or 'buddling', Sir John Gell II observed that the practice 'sets the cattle upon the belland, which is destructive to the cattle and horses and often kills them' -- testimony to a hazard farmers and miners had been in conflict over for generations.
How it worked
A belland yard's drystone walls physically fenced off the ground around a dressing floor, shafts and spoil heaps where lead-contaminated waste and dust had accumulated, keeping grazing animals out of an area whose grass and standing water could otherwise poison them. Miners were separately obliged under Derbyshire mining law to empty washing sludge only within a fixed distance either side of their vein -- a 'quarter cord', seven and a quarter yards, or a quarter of a meer -- to limit how far the pollution could spread beyond the yard itself.
Why it was used
Miners and the farmers whose land adjoined a mine were frequently in direct legal and physical conflict over belland poisoning; a walled yard was the practical, low-cost way to keep the mine's own contaminated ground fenced off; a court case brought in 1794 against Wensley miners who had buddled ore waste directly into the River Derwent shows what happened when a mine skipped this precaution and let the waste spread unchecked, muddying the river for a mile below Cromford Bridge and forcing a Matlock publican to sink his own well.
Risks & limitations
A belland yard's wall only ever contained the immediate working ground; it did nothing to stop toxic waste washed or carried further afield, whether into a stream, a shared water supply, or a neighbour's field, which is why disputes between miners and farmers over belland poisoning recur throughout the Derbyshire mining record even where a yard existed.
Regional variation
The word 'belland' for lead-poisoned mine waste, and the belland yard built to contain its effects, are specific to the Derbyshire lead field; the underlying problem of livestock poisoning from mine waste was general wherever lead was worked, but is not known to carry this name elsewhere.
Mines associated with this term
5 examples chosen from 15 linked records — the term page is not an index.
- Arbourseats Veins and Nay Green Mine — Derbyshire (well documented example)
Named 4 times in this record, first in the history: “…2,700 feet along its vein. At the west end of Tansley Dale is a belland yard with a run-in shaft, gin circle and a coe built later over the old…” - Bondog Hole Mine — Derbyshire (well documented example)
Named 3 times in this record, first in the history: “…features stand on top of a large hillock: a terraced and walled belland yard and dressing floor, with room for the documented gin circle, and the…” - Carsington Pasture Lead Mines — Derbyshire (well documented example)
Named 3 times in this record, first in the history: “…buildings and a probable gin circle. Nickalum Mine retains a walled belland yard and, nearby, large buddle dams; Perseverance Mine has shafts, a gin…” - Coalpithole Rake — Derbyshire (well documented example)
Named in this record’s surface remains: “Belland yard walls, numerous shafts (some grilled), gin circles, dressing floors,…” - Eldon Hill Crushing Circle — Derbyshire (well documented example)
Named 3 times in this record, first in the history: “…shafts, linked to it by open cuts and small hillocks; abutting the belland yard wall enclosing the whole complex are the remains of a small, almost…”
Sources
- (primary) Black Rakes, Welshmans Venture and Bondog Hole Mines, and Merry Tom and Thumper Sitch Levels, Middleton, Derbyshire — AncientMonuments.uk (mirroring the Historic England scheduling record)
- (secondary) Derbyshire lead mining history — Wikipedia
Record created: 16 September 2026 · Last researched: 16 September 2026