In Swaledale there are many references to miners working the beck bottoms
for ore which escaped the dressing floors. If i remember correctly the
earliest reference is late 17th century. In the 1870s miners were working in
Gunnerside Gill and in the 1920s a retired miner was working the beck around
the Old Gang Smelt mills, but i have not come across any direct references
to alluvial mining.
Martin Roe
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