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Well done Mike, Your book has clarified some points to me about the Swaledale Mines and Smelters, which A Raistrack left incomplete. I have wondered about how they got the bags of cement, the hut, cement, scaffolding and the cement mixer up Gunnerside Gill to Blakethwaite and the buildings at Sir Francis Level. The hut was still standing with its bags of cement inside Aprill last year so i don't know when the hut was blown away? I hope the Dales National Park resumes this project, but i know it is now active restoring the many miles of dry stone walls and barns (with were part of miners intakes many years ago). Thanks Barry ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mike Gill" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Monday, June 18, 2001 1:24 PM Subject: Helicopters - their place in mining history Sorry, Should have said - the helicopter did not crash (in flames or otherwise), but it was mining related. The Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority was using it to take building materials to Blakethwaite smelt mill (yes, and the place where peat was stored). The hut that they built to store the stuff in blew away in a gale a few weeks later! The air-set bags of cement will give future archaeologists something to ponder on. Sadly, despite lots of enthusiasm for it, the NMRS/Bradford Univ. 'Early Lead Smelting Project', is very quiet at present because F&M continues to beset the Dales. The fieldwork looks like having to wait until next year. As Peter says "it has a lot of questions to answer". Some indication of the form these questions (at least some of them) might take is given in Sam Murphy and H. Baldwin's paper on "Early lead smelting sites in the Swaledale area of Yorkshire" Historical Metallurgy Vol.35, No.1 (2001), pp.1-21. Mike