Featured Title:
Watchers of the Dawn DVD and ebook |
 |
| The Sutton Companion to Castles |
 |
| Login |
|
Don't have an account yet? You can create one. As a registered user you have some advantages like your own home page, fewer ads, and your contributions link to your page. |
| Who's Online |
There are currently, 176 guests and 8 members online.
You are an Anonymous user. You can register for free by clicking here |
|  |
Photo Pages: Engine Vein, Alderley Edge Copper Mines - Ancient Mine, Quarry or other Industry in England in Cheshire
|
Submitted by vicky on Tuesday, 22 June 2010 Page Views: 19370
|
 Site Name: Engine Vein, Alderley Edge Copper Mines Country: England County: Cheshire Type: Ancient Mine, Quarry or other Industry
Nearest Town: Wilmslow Nearest Village: Alderley Edge
Map Ref: SJ861776 Landranger Map Number: 118
Latitude: 53.295173N Longitude: 2.210001W
Condition:| 5 | Perfect | | 4 | Almost Perfect | | 3 | Reasonable but with some damage | | 2 | Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site | | 1 | Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks | | 0 | No data. | | -1 | Completely destroyed |
4
Ambience:| 5 | Superb | | 4 | Good | | 3 | Ordinary | | 2 | Not Good | | 1 | Awful | | 0 | No data. |
3
Access:| 5 | Can be driven to, probably with disabled access | | 4 | Short walk on a footpath | | 3 | Requiring a bit more of a walk | | 2 | A long walk | | 1 | In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find | | 0 | No data. |
4
Accuracy:| 5 | co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates | | 4 | co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map | | 3 | co-ordinates scaled from a bad map | | 2 | co-ordinates of the nearest village | | 1 | co-ordinates of the nearest town | | 0 | no data |
no data
Internal Links:    
External Links:               Engine Vein, Alderley Edge Copper Mines submitted by Vicky
Ancient Mine or Quarry in Cheshire. Due to intense mining activities in recent centuries, it has been very difficult to identify whether or not copper mines were used in prehistoric times.
Apart from a few scant records relating to discoveries in the last couple of centuries, the only way of telling whether these ‘holes in the ground’ date to the Bronze Age is by the discovery of stone hammers and associated charcoal.
In England a few finds have come to light in mines in the Peak District such as at Ecton and in Cornwall, but the best known ancient site is at Alderley Edge in Cheshire. Prehistoric mining was undoubtedly also taking place in Cornwall, if not for the copper, then definitely for the tin, but the mines in this area have been worked so hard in modern times here that no traces have ever been found.
The sandstone escarpment of Alderley Edge lies at 120m above sea level. On a clear day visitors are presented with commanding views across the Cheshire Plain to the mountains of Wales in the west, Liverpool to the north-west, Manchester and beyond to the north, and east across to the Pennines. Evidence from flint scatters indicates that the Edge was settled from early times. Copper, lead, cobalt, silver and iron have been found in the mines, but prehistoric activities were limited only to the copper. These same ore-bearing rocks are also found a few miles to the north-east in Mottram St Andrew. The Edge would have been particularly attractive to Bronze Age miners because it was fortunate in having a prominent exposure of malachite. Walking close to the Engine Vein mine today it is still possible to see the ground flecked with traces of this green ore.
During more recent mining operations between 1855 and 1878 a number of ancient mines were found both on the Edge itself and at nearby Mottram St Andrew. More is known about the excavations on the Edge because around three-quarters of the surface workings here are accessible. In Mottram, however, the mines are largely flooded so little can be deduced.
The first indication that the Alderley mines dated back as far as the Bronze Age came to light during operations at Brindlow in the 19th century. The following extract comes from the pages of local writer, Dr J.D. Sainter in 1878:
‘A short time ago as some miners were at work on the Edge, they came upon a large collection of stone implements, consisting of celts, adzes, hammer heads or axes, mauls, &c. Some were lying upon the sand and gravel, from one to two feet below the surface, along with foreign boulders and pebbles belonging to the drift period; and others had been left in some old diggings of the copper ore, from three to four yards in depth, along with an oak shovel that had been very roughly used. Nearly the whole had been rudely made, and were more or less smashed; and they appeared to have been thrown aside, having become useless.’
He continues: ‘They varied in size, and ran up to ten or twelve pounds in weight; and not one that I have noticed has been perforated for the insertion of a handle, but there was a groove formed around each, near the middle so that by bending a tough stick slightly along the groove, and securing it below with thongs, and then fastening the ends of the stick together these would form a handle.’
These tools used for pounding and crushing the ore, had been made from glacial erratic boulders found in the immediate neighbourhood. Some appeared to be relatively new while others were well-worn indicating prolonged use. Two of the hammers had even been sharpened as if for cutting. Interestingly all were found together side by side suggesting the mine had been suddenly abandoned. A number of large unworked boulders, perhaps being stored for future use, were also located in a nearby hollow.
This site of Brindlow (today known as Brynlow to the west of the Macclesfield road at GR: SJ855773) was visited by Professor Boyd Dawkins, Professor of Geology at Manchester University, in 1874. He discovered a few stray hammers on the ground and upon further investigation found evidence for prehistoric open cast mining to a depth of between eight and eleven feet below the surface. Over a hundred tools were unearthed in the debris sued to back fill the mine, including the hammers and the oak shovel mention by Sainter. The find attracted interest from a variety of antiquarians, some of whom were not convinced of a prehistoric provenance. One in particular, a Mr Plant believed them to be nothing more than ‘stones used for the attachment of tents, or for the rope-weights to hold the thatch on the roofs of the huts of the miners, and not perhaps gone long out of existence’.
Luckily for archaeology not everyone was of this opinion and the discovery inspired a local resident, Mr F.S.Graves, to undertake a systematic search of the whole Edge, revealing a whole host of interesting features. Further hammers were detected in rubbish heaps in Windmill Wood to the north of the Brindlow levels and here at the Engine Vein and its environs to the east (on the opposite side of the Macclesfield Road). Continuing in a north-easterly direction yet more were found in Dickens Wood (SJ 863778) and also in Mottram St Andrew (SJ 874784), but those from the latter were highly inferior in quality.
To return to Sainter's‘oak shovel’. This was lost for many years, but was fortunately rediscovered by local author, Alan Garner, under the stage in Alderley Edge school in 1953. He tried for many years to persuade various academic institutions of its provenance. The Manchester Museum were ‘unavailable to comment’, the British Museum dismissed it as ‘possibly a Tudor winnowing fan’ and the Ashmolean declared it to be ‘a child’s toy spade: Victorian’. Luckily the author did not give up and eventually returned to the Manchester Museum with it many years later. An inspection declared it to be a Bronze Age shovel and this was later confirmed by radiocarbon analysis, giving a date of between 1888 and 1677BC.
Mr Graves and his acquaintance Mr Roeder, also established that the Engine Vein dated back to prehistoric times and undertook further investigations in this area. They discovered that the Bronze Age miners had worked these exposures of malachite from the surface to a depth of approximately 5m by sinking small circular pits into the ore bed and then knocking out the side to make a clear face. This was repeated until the whole of the bed was revealed.
On the eastern side of the Engine Vein, the rock face was blackened and cracked as if it had been subjected to fire setting to make it easier to break. This was further supported by the discovery of large pieces of charcoal and decayed stems of gorse (ie fuel) found in what they believed to be fireplaces on the ground made from lead ore. Similar evidence of blackening was found on the western side of the mine workings where a large number of stone hammers were located in a spoil heap.
A small deposit of crushed ore was also found on the southern side of the mine indicating that it was broken up, separated and heaped close by. Even more interesting is the report of ‘lumps of smelted copper and slag’ which came from a rubbish heap to the west.
Access and Location
As far as prehistory goes, the Engine Vein is the only mine worth visiting where evidence of Bronze Age workings still exist at the surface. Park in the main National Trust car park and take the path to the north between the Information Centre and the Warden’s Cottage. Follow this for 200m or so through the woods and you will come to the western end of the Engine Vein.
References
Cheshire County Sites and Monuments Record
W. O’Brien – Bronze Age Copper Mining (Shire, 1996)
D.M.Longley “Prehistory” in C.R.Elrington (ed) “The Victoria History of the County of Chester, volume 1, Oxford University Press (1987)
C. Roeder “Prehistoric and Subsequent Mining at Alderley Edge, with a sketch of the Archaeological Features of the Neighbourhood”, TLCAS Volume 19 (1901)C. Roeder and F.S. Graves ‘Recent Archaeological Discoveries at Alderley Edge’, TLCAS 1891
J.D. Sainter “Scientific Rambles Round Macclesfield”, Silk Press reprint (1999)
W. Shone “Prehistoric Man in Cheshire” (1911)
G.Warrington ‘The Copper Mines of Alderley Edge and Mottram St Andrew, Cheshire’ JCAS Volume 64 (1981)
Note: National Trust Guided Walk Sunday 4 July 2010, see comment.
You may be viewing yesterday's version of this pageTo see the most up to date information please register for a free user account.
 Engine Vein, Alderley Edge Copper Mines submitted by ShropshireTraveller
Looking east through the Engine Vein, which has been mined for 4,000 years. See main article for details.
 Engine Vein, Alderley Edge Copper Mines submitted by vicky
A drawing of the Bronze Age oak shovel found in one of the mines at Alderley Edge (from Sainter, 1878).
See main site entry - Engine Vein, Alderley Edge Copper Mines, for further details.
 Engine Vein, Alderley Edge Copper Mines submitted by Vicky
Grooved Hammer Stones found near the Engine Vein at Alderley Edge in 1874 from Shone’s ‘Prehistoric Man in Cheshire, 1911’.
Do not use the above information on other web sites or publications without permission of the contributor.
Nearby sites
In the following links * = Image available
Pop-up a map of these sites
Turn off the embedded Yahoo Map and other distractions
Pop-up a Google Map of these sites
Turn on all information for this site
same position Golden Stone* Standing Stone (Menhir) (SJ861776)
120m E 87° The Golden Stone Marker Stone (SJ86227761)
221m N 351° Wizard's Cave Cave or Rock Shelter (SJ86087782)
281m N 350° Druidical Circle Modern Stone Circle / Monolith (SJ86077788)
315m W 281° Armada Beacon* Round Barrow(s) (SJ858777)
360m W 292° Wizard's Well* Holy Well or Sacred Spring (SJ858778)
486m N 344° Findlow Marker Stone (SJ86027808)
830m S 176° Great Merestone Marker Stone (SJ86137677)
1.5km E 70° Mottram St Andrew Mines Ancient Mine, Quarry or other Industry (SJ874784)
3.1km S 195° Birtles Hall Round Barrow(s) (SJ856745)
4.0km E 96° St Peter (Prestbury)* Ancient Cross (SJ9004076950)
4.2km SW 220° Sodger's Hump* Round Barrow(s) (SJ842739)
4.4km E 112° Prestbury Road (Macclesfield)* Ancient Cross (SJ89727511)
4.6km E 85° Bonis Hall Lane* Round Barrow(s) (SJ907783)
4.9km E 87° Butley Stone Circle (SJ9178)
5.0km SW 212° Capesthorne Hall (NE)* Round Barrow(s) (SJ843729)
5.1km SW 220° Capesthorne Hall (NW) Round Barrow(s) (SJ838730)
5.2km SW 208° Capesthorne Hall (SE) Round Barrow(s) (SJ845726)
5.5km SE 138° New Farm, Henbury* Stone Circle (SJ887728)
5.6km E 111° Macclesfield Cemetery* Round Barrow(s) (SJ908745)
5.6km W 286° Lindow* Ancient Trackway (SJ810800)
5.7km S 159° Bearhurst Farm Round Barrow(s) (SJ874720)
5.9km E 107° Lavenham Close* Round Barrow(s) (SJ914749)
6.0km E 108° Beech Hall Round Barrow(s) (SJ914747)
6.0km E 112° West Park Crosses* Ancient Cross (SJ911742)
Search the web for Engine Vein, Alderley Edge Copper Mines with
Google.
Search the web for Engine Vein, Alderley Edge Copper Mines Ancient Mine, Quarry or other Industry with
Google.
Try a Google search for images of Engine Vein, Alderley Edge Copper Mines
New: Google Scholar search for references to Engine Vein, Alderley Edge Copper Mines |
|
 | |
| Hill Figures Of England £5.95 |
 |
| Auto-Translation (Google) |
|
Translate from English into:
|
|
Alan Garner and Alderley Edge (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Thursday, 26 September 2002 | For those who are fans of Alan Garner (The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, The Owl Service, The Moon of Gomrath), I have put together a web page, with about twenty photos of Alderley Edge and surrounds, including images of Goldenstone, the Wizard's Well, and Redesmere.
You will find the site at www.daharja.net/alangarner.htm
Enjoy! | [ Reply to This ]
|
Alderley Edge Mines Open Days (Score: 1)
by ShropshireTraveller on Tuesday, 05 July 2005
(User Info | Send a Message) | There are open days at the mines here, where you can go down into some of the many miles of mine passageways beneath the area. Full details are HERE on the Derbyshire Caving Club's website who host the open days.
A fascinating visit, well worth it.
Tim
| [ Reply to This ]
|
Re: Alderley Edge DEREK (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Tuesday, 28 July 2009 | | been down it back in early sixte`s wen we were rockers old BSA mcycle`s pot hole was also wot we did as well wonder if SPIKE our guide back then has read this nick name came from the fact he had a world war bayonet | [ Reply to This ]
|
|
Main News
