Mike Gill is wrong on one point - his message is certainly not boring.

The Derbyshire is only one lead mining field - albeit an important one in
the early modern period - of many in England and Wales.  Each developed in a
unique manner - often defined by the system of land / mineral ownership, the
quality ond/or depth of the ore deposits, the markets for the product etc. -
but it was not unusual 'borrow' techniques from other fields.

When it comes to smelting techniques I have no hesitation in including
developments in the silver/lead mining areas.  They, and the lead mining
fields, shared a common ore base although the primary end product may have
been different.  When the Devon silver mines were opened up in the late 13th
century miners and smelters were impressed in North Wales and Derbyshire and
brought the bole smelting techniques with them.  The bole was found wanting
as it was incapable of treating all the ore mined and extracting all the
lead/silver from the ore smelted. With valuable metals (particularly silver)
locked up in the residues and untreatable ore, a system of furnace smelting
was adopted to supplement the bole, particularly in the case of this
discussion to resmelt the residues from the bole - the 'blackwork'. 

My argument is - that system of re-smelting residues was not adopted by the
lead fields until there was a crisis in ore supplies and 'new' sources of
lead had to be found to satisfy demand.  Blanchard ( Seigneurial
entrepreneurship: The Bishops of Durham and the Weardale Lead Industry 1406
- 1529,' Business History, Vol. XV (1973) pp. 97 - 111.) has suggested as
much for the Durham lead fields in the mid 15th century but within a
restricted market environment where the majority of the lead was destined
for the bishop's own works.  Does the argument hold good for other mining
fields? 

I did not say we were 'restricted' to the three 'snapshots' mentioned in my
earlier message but with only limited documentary evidence we have to rely
on the archaeological evidence to confirm the validity of the argument. 

I would agree that the late Derbyshire model cannot be applied to the
pattern of smelting in Swaledale, nor can it be applied to silver/lead
smelting even at latter end of the medieval period, but it is still a useful
model to test the development of smelting in other areas.  Bole/bale
smelting sites remote from the ore field, and on a route to probable
markets, are found in the northern Pennines - by applying Keirnan's late
Derbyshire model might we not identify a late phase of development of the
northern field involving changes in the way ore was purchased and prepared
for market? On the other hand the late Derbyshire model might not prove a
good fit but lead to the formulation of a new model which does fit the
northern field.

Applying a model or a historical concept, and finding it does not fit, does
not make that model / concept a failure.

Mike Gill published a strong case for applying the concept of
'proto-industrialisation' to lead mining ('Mining and
proto-industrialisation,' British Mining, No. 41 (1990), pp. 99-110.)  Now I
can take the same concept, apply it to the silver/lead mining industry and
find no fit whatsoever - but in doing so I begin to understand the
differences, particularly the organisational differences, between lead and
silver mining and am able to see how that industry developed. That made it a
very useful historical tool.

Just a quickie on three of Mike's points - 

How does he explain the 'mine of Yorkshire' the Crown income from which was
farmed along with that from the 'mine of Carlisle', ie. the mines in the
liberty of Tynedale, in 1163 ? There is tentative evidence that this was a
silver mine on Crown land in the Swaledale / Wensleydale area.

As for Mendip - the answer to resource depletion there was the development
of the 'ore hearth' smelting technique which was rapidly taken up by other
mining fields.

And finally, on vitreous slag - given a good wind, a bole could no doubt
produce such slags.  A combination of charcoal dumps and vitreous slag would
however suggest a slag furnace/ blackwork oven (the name is immaterial - as
long as we are talking about the same process.)

Peter

______________________________________________

Peter Claughton, Blaenpant Morfil, Rosebush, Clynderwen, 
Pembrokeshire, Wales  SA66 7RE.    
Tel. 01437 532578; Fax. 01437 532921; Mobile 0831 427599

University of Exeter - Department of History
School of Historical, Political and Sociological Studies
E-mail:  [log in to unmask]

Co-owner - mining-history e-mail discussion list.  
See http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists/mining-history/  for details.

Mining History Pages - http://www.exeter.ac.uk/~pfclaugh/mhinf/

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