Minerals and Mining

From the Eighteenth century at least, stone was used for building purposes on the estate and for a limited number of field walls. There are mineral veins primarily of barytes but at Westcott of copper. Minerals are first reserved in leases and Thomas Hill initiated copper mining at Westcott when he bought the estate in the early 1750’s. His canny agent Thomas Bell.

The original miners had taken on five partners by February 1753 who included Peter Blakeway the Shrewsbury surgeon, Samuel Harrop a Shrewsbury brazier and Mr. Dodd an apothecary (SA112/12/23/55). Saleable copper proved elusive and in April, Bell reported the use of gunpowder for blasting and by December that the miners were “flagging pretty much” and that they had sent for a miner from Yorkshire after sinking a pit 25 yards deep at a cost of 50s a yard (Ibid. 23/66, 23/74).

After this experiment there was no further recorded mining but on adjacent estates at Huglith in Pulverbatch and in the Tankerville estate adjacent to the Vessons mineral leases were let in the 1780’s and 1790’s. Mineral exploration was resumed in 1838 when Samuel Smith made a general lease to mine minerals, including barytes in Gatten, over 232 acres including Westcott and part of Near Bank farm (.SA/D3651/3/27/1/65/3). 

Jonah Harrop granted a new lease in 1858 of Westcott to John and Edward Harrisson miners from Pulverbatch and John Job of Snailbeach, accountant (Ibid. 65/4). In the 1860’s a company was floated to mine copper at Westcott. Shafts were sunk and a Cornish engine installed of which the chimney and part of the boiler house remain in the garden of Westcott Birches.

Little if any saleable ore was found. The Westcott mining company went into liquidation in 1872 and the lease was purchased by Joseph Fearon of Whitehaven. By 1882 he was bankrupt and owing three years rent (SA 3357/48/3). However, by this time there was considerable interest in barytes which had previously been regarded as waste. Numerous levels and shafts on Westcott Hill relate to trials for barytes.

Refer to Mike Smith for details of workings for barytes at Huglith, Sallies, Gatten and to the aerial ropeway from Huglith to Malehurst mill. Workings down to 1947 at Sallies when ropeway was closed and mine abandoned. Shaft now supplies the water for the Gatten estate.