Desperately avoiding the writing that I should be doing for the approaching deadline, we went for a long scramble up to the ruins of the lead mining industry above the village of Gunnerside in the Yorkshire Dales.
The landscape is scarred with industrial ruins and hushes. Huge slag heaps and slopes are covered in waste on which very little will grow; making some parts look like a lunar landscape. Entrances to mining levels are intriguing; the walls shimmer for a way before disappearing into darkness.
A broken water feed pipe disappeared into a black hole. We threw stones down but didn’t hear them hit the bottom.
An air receiver buries into the landscape; it looks like a small submarine. The rivets are beautiful.
Ruins of smelt mills, crushing mills and bouse teams furnish the landscape. Dave found an old nail and hinge up a chimney, he photographed them and hid them again.
The landscape should be spoilt but the ruins blend with the coppery and grey colours of the dales. They accentuate its wild bleak beauty and make exploring fascinating. Mining would have been dangerous and the mortality rate was high; it is certainly not a place to romanticize. Arthur Raistrick wrote extensively about the area and the industrial past. Anyone interested should hunt out one of his many books on the subject.
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