Leadhills

Local attractions

Bear-ly Reminiscent and Teddywood Bear Village Come and meet the Bears who worked in the mines. Their stories are both historical and fun. Visit Teddywood Bear Village, a miniature version of Leadhills housing the Bear community built on the hillside. The village includes a mine, schoolhouse, church and the bear houses. Fun and informative for young and old.

Library

The Leadhills Miners' Library (also known as the Allan Ramsay Library or the Leadhills Reading Society), founded in 1741 by 21 miners, the local schoolteacher and the local minister, specifically to purchase a collection of books for its members’ mutual improvement — its membership was not restricted to the miners; several non-miners, such as William Symington, John Brown (author of Rab and his Friends) and James Braid, were also full members — houses an extensive antiquarian book collection, local relics, mining records and minerals. The library is the oldest subscription library in the British Isles; and is of significant historical and geological importance.

In the late eighteenth century, Peterkin observed the library had “as many valuable books as might be expected to be chosen by promiscuous readers”; he found its members to be “the best informed, and therefore the most reasonable common people that I know” (1799, p. 99); and, in 1823, “J”, observing that “every miner can read, and most of them can write tolerably well”, noted the library had around 1,200 volumes, all of which “have been entirely chosen by [the members] themselves”, and that:

As the miners work only six in the twenty-four hours in the mines, and as the barrenness of the soil affords little scope for agricultural pursuits, they have of course abundance of time for reading: and I believe they generally employ it to good purpose; for many of them can converse upon historical, scientific, and theological points so as to astonish a stranger; and even on political questions, they express their opinions with great acuteness and accuracy.

Today, the library is owned and run by a registered charity, The Leadhills Heritage Trust and has full accreditation with Museums and Galleries Scotland. It is open from May to September on weekends and bank holidays, between 2 pm and 4 pm.

Grouse moors

The grouse moors cover in excess of 11,000 acres (45 km²) around Leadhills and are considered to be amongst the finest in Scotland.

Golf course

Leadhills Golf Course, instituted in 1891, is the highest in Scotland. The nine-hole course offers considerable challenge as the winds can be high and unpredictable as they are channelled between the hills.

Grave of John Taylor

The grave of John Taylor is also available to visit in the cemetery. Reputed to be 137 years of age at the time of his death, Taylor's grave (shared with his son, Robert) even attracted the attention of the BBC.

Scots Mining Company House

The Scots Mining Company House was built in 1736 for James Stirling, the managing agent of the Scots Mining Company. It is attributed to the architect William Adam and is now a category A listed building.

Leadhills and Wanlockhead Railway

The Leadhills and Wanlockhead Railway runs at weekends only and at Christmas sees the "Santa Express" which includes a ride on the train, a visit to Santa down the lead mine and a story read by "Mrs Kringle" in the Museum of Lead Mining, Wanlockhead. The Elvanfoot railway station was on the Caledonian Railway main line from Glasgow to the south. A branch from there ran through Leadhills to Wanlockhead and operated until 1939. Part of the route has been reused by the Leadhills & Wanlockhead Railway. The railway is 1,498 feet (457 m) above sea level.

Business

Leadhills is host to a number of small local businesses ranging from the Village Shop, selling general provisions; the Hopetoun Arms Hotel, providing meals, drinks and rooms; Leadhills Mining Bear Company, Bear-ly Reminiscent, which sells bears and dolls dressed as miners www.bear-lyreminiscent.com; Sanquhar Knitwear, which sells clothing inspired by the world-famous Sanquhar knitting pattern; The Leadhills Jam Factory, which sells delicious Leadhills made jams; and Geocache Land, Scotlands only online geocaching store. Other items available are stained glass windows, garden ornaments, jewellery, postcards and hand-made cards. Many of these items are available at the Leadhills craft fair, which often runs over a weekend at Christmas, and Doors Open Day, which occurs across the Lanark area.

Lodging

Leadhills has numerous holiday homes available to rent for short periods of time, as well as rooms at the Hopetoun Arms.

Gold, silver and lead

Silver and lead have been mined in Leadhills and at nearby Wanlockhead for many centuries, according to some authorities even in Roman days. Gold was discovered in the reign of James IV and, in those early days, it was so famous for its exceptionally pure gold that the general area was known as “God's Treasure House in Scotland”. During the 16th century, before the alluvial gold deposits were exhausted, 300 men worked over three summers and took away some £100,000 of gold (perhaps £500 million today): “Between 1538 and 1542, the district produced 1163 grams of gold for a crown for King James V of Scotland, and 992 grams for a crown for his queen. Much of the gold coinage of James V and Mary Queen of Scots was minted from Leadhills gold … No commercial gold mining appears to have taken place after 1620, but gold washing with a sluice box or pan was later to become a sometimes lucrative pastime of the lead miners” (Gillanders, 1981, pp. 235–236). Gold is still panned in the area with the correct licence.

Minerals

The minerals lanarkite, leadhillite, caledonite, susannite, plattnerite, scotlandite, macphersonite, chenite and mattheddleite were first found at Leadhills. The area is renowned amongst mineralogists and geologists for its wide range of different mineral species found in the veins that lie deep within the (now abandoned) mine shafts; many of which were first found there, with some now recognized as unique to the Leadhills area.

Leadhills Supergroup

The village lends its name to the Leadhills Supergroup, one of the large geological features of the British Isles.

Working conditions

The initial attraction of the Leadhills district was mining. On his visit to the mining area in 1772, the naturalist Thomas Pennant had remarked on its barren landscape:

"Nothing can equal the barren and gloomy appearance of the country round [Leadhills]: neither tree nor shrub, nor verdure, nor picturesque rock, appear to amuse the eye…"

Three years later, in 1776, artist William Gilpin found that, in relation to the working conditions, "the mines here, as in all mineral countries, are destructive of health", "you see an infirm frame, and squalid looks in most of the inhabitants". and twelve years later, according to Rev. William Peterkin (1738-1792), the Minister at Leadhills (and member of its library) from 1785 until his death, the conditions of both the miners and the lead smelters were no better:

The external appearance of Leadhills is ugly beyond description: rock, short heath, and barren [clay]. Every sort of vegetable is with difficulty raised, and seldom comes to perfection. Spring water there, is perhaps as fine as any in the world: but, the water below the smelting-[mills], the most dangerous. The lead before smelting is broke very small and washed from extraneous matter. It contains frequently arsenic, sulphur, zinc, &c. which poisons the water in which it is washed. Fowls of any kind will not live many days at Leadhills. They pick up arsenical particles with their food, which, soon kills, them. Horses, cows, dogs, cats, are liable to the lead-brash. A cat, when seized with that distemper, springs like lightning through every corner of the house, falls into convulsions, and dies. A dog falls into strong convulsions also, but sometimes recovers. A cow grows perfectly mad in an instant, and must be immediately killed. Fortunately this distemper does not affect the human species.

As Pennant had noted in 1772, the human counterpart of the animals' lead-brash was “mill-reek”:

The miners and smelters are subject here, as in other places, to the lead distemper, or mill-reek, as it is called here; which brings on palsies, and sometimes madness, terminating in death in about ten days.

However, because lead was attracting such high prices during the American and Napoleonic Wars, and the domestic construction boom, Leadhills became world-famous for its lead mines.

In a paper reporting on the treatment of a particular case of hydrothorax, published in 1823, James Braid commented that, given all of the theoretically possible causes, with his numerous Leadhills hydrothorax patients, “[those who] have been exposed to breathe noxious or confined air” were by far the majority:

[At Leadhills] the miners must sometimes work in places where there is so little circulation of air, that their candles can scarcely burn; and I have almost invariably observed, that a continuance for any considerable length of time, (although in such situations they may only work three or four hours daily), brings on pneumonia in the young and plethoric, and hydrothorax in the old, if rather of spare habit of body; and if there should happen to be any healthy middle-aged men working as hand-neighbours to these others, although of course both must breath[e] the same impure air, these middle-aged men will remain free from any urgent complaint, till both their young and their aged neighbours are laid aside, perhaps never more to return. I became so fully convinced of this fact, as long ago to have induced me to recommend to the agents and overseers of this place, to avoid, as much as possible, putting thither very young or very old men into such situations.

"Partnerships"

Like many metalliferous miners in other parts of the British Isles in the early 1800s, Leadhills miners did not work for daily wages; in fact, Leadhills miners lived rent-free, working no more than six hours in any one day and, significantly, had no fixed working hours.

At Leadhills, each miner belonged to an autonomous group of up to 12 (a "partnership"), who were paid collectively: on the basis of a contract (a "bargain") struck between one partner (the "taker") and the mining company, to perform a specific task for an agreed payment — in other words, the miners were paid for their results; not for the time they spent underground. There were two types of bargain:

"tut-" or "fathom work": work with no immediate return — such as sinking shafts, driving levels, making excavations, etc. — for a specified "length", usually 12, 15, or 20 fathoms, for a fixed amount.

"tribute work": raising the ore to the surface — where the miners took all the ore from a specific location, and were paid according to the total weight of the ore, at

(a) a set rate per bing (thus, a "bingtale"), or

(b) according to the tonnage of smelted lead that ore had produced (thus, a "tontale").

The individual miner’s family also contributed; the sons worked on the uncovered washing platforms (exposed to the elements in all weathers) washing the impurities from the ore prior to smelting, and the wives and daughters spun wool and embroidered muslin for sale in Glasgow.

The partners supplied their own tools; and were responsible for their upkeep. Many important responsibilities lay with the partners; thus, for instance, only two overseers were needed to manage more than 200 Leadhills’ miners. In the absence of an overseer’s constant and immediate personal supervision, the partners were totally responsible for their collective work practices and occupational safety; thus, the partners, rather than overseers, would decide how to act against threats posed by subterranean water, loose ground, earth tremors, etc. However, with no overseer, there was also no oversight; and, often, hastily constructed passages/shafts were misaligned with those of other teams, affecting the structure of the entire mine — also, the disposal of waste and rubbish from one team’s work area often impeded the progress of another team (or teams).

Steam engines

Coal-fired steam engines, were an important part of the operation at Leadhills. Leadhills had three steam engines as early as 1778 (Smout, 1967, p. 106). In the winter of 1765, James Watt had been approached to design and build a steam engine for Leadhills that would raise water from 30 fathoms (approx. 55m.) below the surface. Watt did not get the contract (Hills, 1998).

1817 mining accident

According to his later report (Braid, 1817), at 7:00 am on 1 March 1817, the mine's surgeon, James Braid, was called urgently to the mine to alleviate the distress of a number of miners who appeared to be suffocated.

It was later established that noxious fumes from the faulty chimney of a coal-fired steam engine, operating deep within the mine, had combined with a dense fog pervading the entire area. The contaminated air was lethal.

Two men, in the hope of finishing early, and contrary to established Leadhills custom, had entered the mine before 4AM; another two, presumably from the same partnership, entered soon after. Reaching their work level (at 25 fathoms) the first two encountered the bad air. They persisted, thinking they could force their way through it, began to feel dizzy, collapsed, and eventually suffocated. The next two encountered a similar fate. The accident was not discovered until some time after 6AM; by which time all of the four men were dead.

To aid those at the 25 fathom level, who were beginning to become violently affected by the fumes, a trap-door was opened to help clear the air; however, unfortunately, the noxious fumes descended rapidly, and another three men, at the 80 fathom level, suffocated. The other miners, many whom were affected to a considerable degree, were restored by Braid as they emerged from the mine.

Cemetery

The cemetery at the northeast of the village features an unusual tablestone inscription (next to the southern wall) detailing almost as an afterthought the age of one hundred and thirty seven years as being the age at death of the lair owner's father.

Notable residents

Allan Ramsay, the poet, and William Symington (1763–1831), one of the earliest adaptors of the steam engine to the purposes of navigation, were born at Leadhills.

The famous mathematician James Stirling was employed by the Scots Mining Company at Leadhills from 1734 until 1770. James Braid, the (later) discoverer of hypnotism, was surgeon to the Leadhills mining community and to Lord Hopetoun's lead and silver mines from early 1816 to late 1825.

Climate

Leadhills experiences a subpolar oceanic climate (Cfc). Due to its elevation and inland position, winters are colder and summers cooler than lower lying areas. In terms of the local climate profile, given its elevated position and latitude, Leadhills is amongst the coldest places in the British Isles. According to the most recent 30-year climate period of 1981-2010 Leadhills is the second coldest village in the UK (of those with weather stations) with an annual mean temperature of 6.76 °C (44.17 °F) making it slightly colder than the commonly regarded coldest settlement of Braemar, which had an annual average temperature of 6.81 °C (44.26 °F) in this period. However, Leadhills' slightly more exposed and elevated location than Braemar results in absolute minima being higher than one might expect - the December absolute minimum of −15.0 °C (5.0 °F) compares favourably to usually milder Glasgow Airport's absolute minimum of −20.0 °C (−4.0 °F).