Level

A horizontal underground working, usually numbered by its depth below the surface or below the top of the shaft it branches from, used to reach and work the ore along a lode.

Historical usage

Mines with a lode of any real vertical extent were typically worked from a whole stack of levels, one below another, each driven out sideways from the shaft to follow the vein at that depth — a structure recorded across countless British mines, several of them, like Greenside's named Lucy Tongue Level and Killhope's Park Level, on this site.

How it worked

A level need not reach the surface at all — many are entirely internal, accessed only via the shaft — but where one does daylight on a hillside or in a valley, it is specifically called an 'adit level', and this site's own Adit term page covers that special surface-reaching case in more detail. An ordinary, non-surfacing level served purely as an internal working platform and haulage route at its particular depth.

Why it was used

Working a lode level by level, rather than as one continuous excavation, let a mine organise ore extraction, haulage and ventilation systematically as depth increased, and gave a simple, standard way to describe exactly where in a mine a given piece of work or an accident had taken place.

Risks & limitations

Distinguishing a level from an adit matters for exactly the reason Carrock Fell Mine's own record illustrates: workings above the 'main adit level' drain naturally by gravity out to the surface, while any level below that point cannot, and needs active pumping instead.

Regional variation

The same concept appears under other names depending on mine and period — 'drift' is common in some coalfields for a similar horizontal working — but 'level', usually with a number or a name attached, is the term used across most of this site's own mine records.

Mines associated with this term

Included only where MineArchive's own research gives a reasonable evidential basis — not every mine where this might plausibly apply.

• Carrock Fell Mine — Cumbria (well documented example)
  Carrock Fell's own record explicitly distinguishes its 'main adit level' — the one level that drained naturally to the surface — from workings below it, which needed pumping; a direct illustration of the level/adit distinction this term describes.
• Greenside Mine — Cumbria (well documented example)
  Greenside's own workings are described by name — Lucy Tongue Level, Low Horse Level, High Horse Level, Glencoyne Level — a rich, genuine example of the numbered/named-level system this term describes.
• Killhope Lead Mine — County Durham (well documented example)
  Killhope's principal working was itself named Park Level, now preserved as part of the North of England Lead Mining Museum.
• Levant Mine — Cornwall (well documented example)
  Levant's man-engine extended to the 170-fathom level before its 1919 collapse, a direct example of a mine's workings being organised and referenced by numbered level.

Sources

1. (primary) Definition of adit — Mindat
2. (secondary) Decline vs Shaft vs Adit vs Drift — An Underground Miner
3. (secondary) Mining terms — Exploring Old Mines (cholla.mmto.org)

Record created: 21 August 2026 · Last researched: 21 August 2026