Derbyshire Lead Mining History - Pollution

Pollution

Lead is poisonous to both plants and animals. For people the smelting processes are the most dangerous - the restored smelter at Spitewinter, near Chesterfield, stands a few yards from Belland Lane, belland being lead poisoning. The current owners of the smelter on the site of the former Mill Close mine at Darley Bridge have bought much of the adjoining land and turned arable and pasture into woodland, to avoid the danger to crops and animals.

The danger to plants and animals, particularly from washing or "buddling" has been known for centuries and the nuisance to the people of Brassington described above was typical of the conflict between farmers and miners. In the 1680s Sir John Gell II gave his opinion during such a dispute. "For buddling ... I have heard that miners have been indicted for it, and the freeholders and occupiers of land are much prejudiced by it. It sets the cattle upon the belland, which is destructive to the cattle and horses and often kills them"

In 1794 several groups of Wensley miners who had buddled mine waste in the river Derwent above and below Darley Bridge were brought to court, accused of polluting the river Witnesses described the river as being muddied as far down-river as a mile below Cromford Bridge, and a Matlock publican claimed to have been prevented from his usual practice of using river water for his brewing by the state of the Derwent. He had had to sink a well to stay in business. Mining law was cited by both sides. The miners quoted the custom which allowed them to wash their ore, while plaintiffs replied with the law which stipulated that sludge from washing should be emptied into "some convenient place within their quarter cord (which is a space of seven yards and a quarter, or the fourth part of a meer, on each side of their vein)" to prevent pollution of the adjacent land. The miners, who had carted their ore to the river, as being easier than carting water to their mine - their mine was dry and there is a steep hill from Wensley to the Derwent - lost their case.

In addition to the mining law to prevent water pollution quoted in the Wensley case, often ignored by the miners, attempts to prevent pollution of farmland included tree planting to deter cattle from grazing near mining operations - there are many examples of trees planted on the lines of veins in the old mining areas as well as the recent afforestation at Darley Bridge. Smelting mills were provided with chimneys to dissipate the fumes from the ore hearths. These were only partly successful as the mills were often sited in or near to settlements, which suffered from lead deposits from the chimneys. The mills also polluted the streams which powered their bellows. Cupolas, described below, conveyed their emissions via tunnels to chimneys, which were often a considerable distance from the smelter. The limited success achieved by these efforts is exemplified by the naming of Belland Lane.