Peter,
Thanks for answering my unambiguous question about the nature of land around
boles in south Devon in the mediaeval period.
Your comments that "Agricultural land was at a premium in areas like Bere
Ferrers with a population inflated by mining activity" and "some of the bole
sites were operated in close proximity to cultivated ground" highlights a
problem that may not have arisen in much of the north until the 19th
century - namely the conflict between agricultural and mining needs.
From your figures, the 28 percent lost in the refining process amounts to
around 300 tons of lead distributed across
the area during that 13 year period. This might not have done chickens and
cattle a lot of good, but would it have made much difference to cereals? I
would have thought that the sulphurous gases arising from smelting the ore
would have been a more immediate problem.
Your own and Trevor's comments about the difficulty of finding smelting
residues on farmed land heightened my own worries about the apparent picture
in places like Swaledale. Smelting there appears to have been confined to
the hill tops and higher slopes, but evidence from the north Pennines
suggests that there was some smelting in the valley bottoms too. Are we,
therefore, missing a whole tier of smelting sites in the Dales?
As for finding such sites, if they exist, I suppose that field walking after
ploughing is an option. Where pastoralism is favoured one might have to
rely on the muck upcast by moles and rabbits. Your local metal detector
enthusiast(s) might even point out places where slags occur. A friendly
farmer might do the same.
For those of us without electron microscopes etc the best way of
distinguishing bale smelting from ore-hearth smelting
residues has generally been their location. If hand or foot blown bellows
are discounted (but not forgotten as an option), then the ore-hearth would
need a water supply (races, dams etc) hence the siting of smelt mills near
streams. As most bales favoured windier sites on ridges etc, water supply
would have been a problem. In theory at least, a mill with reverberatory
furnaces did not need water power, but they often had separate, bellows
blown slag-hearths. A rummage through the slag dump would also probably
reveal fire brick in moderate amounts. It is the sites which are near water
but do not appear to be formal smelt mills which are of great interest.
Mike Gill
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