Slit Mine Archaeology and Other Interesting Things

Today, at quite short notice, I assembled by the Post Office in Westgate in Weardale and conjoined with Brian and Charlie and several Westgate residents, the landowners of Slit Wood and various archaeologists, hydrologists and other kinds of ologists for an exposition of an industrial archaeology project which is taking place high up Slit Wood.

Slit Wood is and ancient bit of woodland which is absolutely heaving with wild flowers, including quite a lot of plants which don’t mind a spot of lead pollution.

It also has an ancient mill at it’s foot, which may well have a longer history of being other things, and Slit Mine which is one of the biggest and most important mines in Weardale, with a history of about 250 years of activity.
English Heritage and Natural England (careful Peewiglet…..) are spending about a quarter of a million of yer Queen’s spondoolies making sure the place doesn't disappear into the beck, which occasionally sports some monster floods.

The work is centred around stabilising the buildings – in particular some Bouse teams (stores for lead ore for each team or gang of miners), a 600 foot shaft, a wheel pit and the site of a hydraulic engine and it’s dam, plus dressing floors, a smithy and some culverts.


This rose is carved into a tree next to a memorial bench for a local who died in Spain in 2001. Unfortunately the tree is now dead. This photo may well soon be all that's left of it.
So, lead by Tom Gledhill, we learned a lot about the place and made some unexpected discoveries.

After the walk during which we sent Brian off to pick some litter from the beck, where we discovered this fossilised beach


And then some of us met with 88 year old Charlie Armstrong planting out in his garden by the beck. I should explain that the path up to Slit Wood goes through Charlie’s garden. We got chatting and Charlie asks us in to see inside the mill….. which turns out to be probably originally built as a Bastle house, probably with some building material from the Bishop of Durham’s castle just downstream a bit.
We started almost underground in a byre with a kitchen next to it, but, apparently, no way to get upstairs.
Upstairs were the controls for the mill wheel and hoists and ancient fireplaces and floor levels. And Mr Armstrong is the possessor or the head wheel for Slit Mine a mile upstream, showing damage from the cable which must have been too small. Apparently, this wheel had worked its way downstream over a number of years and was rescued just before it fell into the pool where Brian was picking litter. The pool is quite deep and rescue from there would have been more than tricky.
A short sojourn in the Hare and Hounds was called for and enjoyed.
We have, of course, been to Slit Wood before haven’t we blogreaders?  But now we know more about it.

Weardale Weeds and Slit Wood

Me and becky (adminfairy) and superdawg had a little Easter Sunday walk in Weardale up the rather lovely Slit Wood at Westgate.
I’m not entirely sure whether or not Slit Wood is named after Slit Vein or Slit Vein is named after Slit Wood. Slit Vein, I should explain is a 22km long mineral vein which runs along Weardale and has been dug and mined and generally messed around and, if you know how and where to look, it is easily identified. (It just needs somebody to point it out)
Any road up, as you’d expect (possibly), Slit Wood is intersected by Slit Vein which runs crossways to it. This means, of course, that Slit Wood holds lots of industrial archaeology…..

So we set off at a sign pointing g to “Weeds”. Is this the other end of the Weeds Wivverpool Canal I hear you ask. Don’t be daft say I, its nothing of the sort.
We enter Slit Wood at the ex-mill at the bottom (still has a wheel pit) and we ramble up the little gill beside a tumbling and occasionally gurgling beck till we reach Slit Vein, where there are the bargain stores, where each mining team stored it’s gains or ore before payment, and some interesting culverts in the beck, which I am honour-bound to explore. So – discarding boots and socks, I enter the frigid waters and splash upstream. But it gets too deep, so instead, I escape and we have a little brew-up in the hot sun. (yes – hot sun….)
In terms of weeds – so far Ive identified some Wood Anemone, Wild strawberry, Cowslip, Daisy. Coltsfoot, Pansy (not sure which type), Ramsoms and Bluebells not yet flowering, though. Oh, and dandelions, a much maligned but rather sophisticated and beautiful plant in my opinion. And lots of little white things, probably some kind of bedstraw… But its nice to see flowers flowering and lambs in the fields, and even an ex-hedgehog squashed on the road. Just like the mentalist bikers roaring up Weardale, and the now green hawthorn hedges they’re all good signs that spring has finally sprung. And willow-warblers in the woods too.
And so, post-brew we continue.
A bit further up, we exit the woods on to the moors and cross the beck where we find four 4wds stuck in the lane, which they have virtually destroyed. The crews of these four cars seem to be families of what my son-in-law would call “Pikeys”. I take pics of their registration numbers for forwarding to the County Council, but I’m not sure of their legal position in this lane. They’d have had to have driven on bridleways to get there, though.
An hour later, as we return on the “down” lane, they’re still where they were before – still revving up, still stuck. The shepherd who appears to be doing something vaguely obscene to a ewe, says that they’ve been there since this morning. He says that they don’t usually get stuck at that point.
I’m not unhappy that they are well stuck.
A bit later, we pass a little quarry which has an enormous boss of rock in it. The boss is the Slit Vein itself. The very man. The ironstone has been dug out from around the sides and the galena has been mined from the middle and what’s left is an enormous lump of quartz. For anybody who doesn’t quite understand the concept of a mineral vein – this is the place to visit.
We end the walk and go home via Boozebusters in Crook (all good walks should have beer at the end)
We’ve done just 6 miles and 800 or so feet of uphill and forty feet of paddling in two-foot deep water at not much above freezing (it felt) . Is that enough statistics?