In their book on the industrial archeology of the Bristol area, Buchanan
and Cossins mention that there were important zinc mines on Worle Hill
in Somerset in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Very little
seems to be known about these mines, and a query here some time ago
produced little new information.
For those who don't know, Worle is now a suburb of Weston-super-Mare,
and there don't seem to be any surviving traces of mining activity. I'd
always assumed that this was because the mines were very shallow and had
been destroyed by later quarrying and building work, but I've recently
begun to have doubts about this.
I know that there were relatively deep zinc mines nearby at Shipham in
the nineteenth century, and I've just discovered a letter from John
Locke to Robert Boyle dated 5 May 1666 in which he refers to mines 30
fathoms deep on the Mendips, although it's unclear whether they were
lead or zinc workings. Can anyone point me towards any published work on
early modern zinc mining which might help to shed more light on the subject?
Keith Ramsey
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