Hodbarrow Mines (1855 - 1968)

07/03/09

Hodbarrow Mines (1855 - 1968)

This gallery is the story of the once great mines at Hodbarrow, Millom, Cumberland. Sadly, all of the photographs are post closure; however, there are links to sites that show Hodbarrow while still working.

Prior to 1855 a small stretch of coast in the far southern tip of Cumberland, between the hamlets of Haverigg & Holborn Hill, held a farm, limekilns and an old disused windmill. When the Steel Green estate at Hodbarrow was sold in 1855 the advert failed to mention the possiblity of iron on the site, only that it would make a worthwhile sea bathing resort. This stretch of coast had been searched for iron deposits before and had been written off as promising much and providing very little. A level dug just after 1850, called Towsey Hole, can still be seen in the limestone cliffs to the east of Hodbarrow Point. Iron was being mined in a couple of places within Millom district including The Hill (short for the Hill of Millom) and Kirksanton, both about two miles from Hodbarrow. These were small deposits and by the 1870's were uneconomical to work. There was a blast furnace in Millom at Duddon Bridge, the structures are well preserved and worth a visit.
Two men, an iron & metal dealer from Liverpool, who moved to Broughton -in- Furness - Nathaniel Caine, and John Barrett from Gwennap, Cornwall - who knew mining 'in-side out' and managed at various mines, including Coniston copper mines, decided to try their luck at Hodbarrow where so many had failed.
After negotiating a lease with Hodbarrow's owner, the Earl of Lonsdale (the land had been held by the lords of Millom, but the last surviving heiress and her Husband, sold Millom to Lonsdale in the 1790's), the partners started work at Hodbarrow in the spring of 1855.
Things moved slowly to begin with and the first shaft, called 'Old Engine', produced small amounts of ore by 1857, but it was not until 1859, that the first shippment of ore was made from the mine. In fact, the mine did not start making a profit till 1865, after a sum of £57,000 had been spent. However, in 1860 bore holes had showed that there was a substantial amount of ore at Hodbarrow Point and toward Redhill's Quarry. Some veins were up to 50' thick and had not been fully penertrated yet, another vein under Old Engine proved to be 84' thick; these early workings had an estimated 1 million tons of ore waiting to be raised. Optimism was in the air and the company mined on.
The mine grew considerably after 1860, with the sinking of more shafts named after benefactors and investors, such as Bewley, Lonsdale, Whim, Woodburne, Annie Lowther, New Annie Lowther, Jackson, Turner, Office, Caine & Barrett. A lighthouse was built in 1866 to aid the company's ships reach Borwick Rails Harbour safely and a contract was negotiated with the railway to lay track to carry ore direct from Hodbarrow to Holborn Hill station. By 1871 there were nine 400 horse power winding & pumping engines at the mine.
By the late 1860's the company's effort was repaid with a much larger body of ore being discovered, later called the 'new mine' or the 'Mainsgate Deposit', which lay to the west of the 'old mine' toward Steel Green. Three new shafts were sunk no. 1, 2, & 3, but when in reach of the huge bodies of ore, runs of sand & water (upto 1500 gallons a minute) began to be a major problem in working the new mine. No. 3 pit was developed as a circular shaft, rather than square, and had iron cylinders inserted into it. It was later called the Staffordshire or Jackson's Pit after the work was carried out by the Staffordshire Sinkers & Bankers. No. 4 or Turner's pit was sunk in 1871, but was abandoned in 1872 due to water influx, which the pumps could not handle. New, more powerful, pumps were installed, which allowed the pits to be completed. In February 1879 Cedric Vaughan noted it was possible to go down Jackson's Pit and return up Turner's, but the first ore had only been raised on 6th Sept. 1878 from Jackson's Pit; nearly ten years after it was started. In 1876 a new no.1 pit, called William, was begun and about this time no.5 or Arnold Pit was sunk, this pit collapsed in 1938, while being used as a pumping shaft. In 1883 no.'s 6 & 7 were begun. Finally the new mine was accessible, but the cost was very high and a figure of £122,411,18 shillings 10d is regarded as the most accurate. Despite the set backs and costs the mine was still very profitable and output remained high.
However, as the Mainsgate deposit was being opened up, a new obstacle was hit - tidal insurgance.
The directors decided that sea defences were needed and a clay bank was begun in 1880 and later replaced by a timber barrier. By 1886 it became critical for a more solid structure to be built or see the mine become extinct. An agreement was finally reached with Lonsdale in 1887 to build a wall and extend the company's grant beyond the high water mark and out into the Duddon; thus, allowing upto five million tons of high grade haematite ore to be reached.
In 1888 Lucas & Aird contractors arrived to begin work on the Sea Wall and its embankment, designed by Sir John Coode & Sons and would cost £106,311. The Sea Wall was completed by 1890 and was three quarters of a mile long, stretching from the company's lighthouse to Steel Green, fifty feet from base to top, and was covered with a tar skin. The Sea Wall gave the mine a new lease of life, and sand runs became infrequent and most of little consequence. However, in 1896 these runs again became more troublesome, but in May 1898 a run occured that appeared to be nothing out of the ordinary, but soon became a torrent. By 1a.m on the 18th, when the tide receded, a hole 120' round and 15' deep in the shape of a funnel could be seen 100 yards from the base of the wall on the foreshore: the mine had tapped into an underground bed of quicksand, which with the oncoming tide had washed into the mine - this was the first time that sea water had actually inundated the mine. The depression was filled and rammed with clay and the water flow did not increase when the tide returned at 7 a.m. that day. On the 21st May at 3.30 a.m. part of the Sea walls inner embankment subsided; the resulting collapse stopped the influx of sand & water within a hour and a half. The Sea Wall was reinforced at this point, but the company knew a new solution was needed and decided to build another sea defence further out into the estuary.
Permission was sought and granted by the Earl of Lonsdale in June 1888 and Sir John Coode's company were again called on to design a new wall, called the Outer Barrier. A tender for £485,000 by John Aird &Co. was accepted in September 1899 and work began in April 1900 and completed in 1905. The Outer Barrier is over one mile long and was built of puddled clay, driven timber & steel piles, slag, earth, and faced on the seaward side with concrete & limestone blocks, quarried or made on site; facilities to sluice water from the mine workings out into the estuary were also put in. The Barrier was designed to give with any land movement caused by subsidence, this it has done admirablely for over a century. A new lighthouse was also incorporated into it in 1906. The Outer Barrier reclaimed 200 acres of foreshore and allowed the mine to continue to grow and prosper. The final cost of the Outer Barrier was £577,430 and the fact that the company paid all of this amount in full from profits and interest on investments before the end of 1906, shows how big a venture the Hodbarrow mines were.
In 1909 the last pit was sunk in the Mainsgate deposit; No10 near to New Annie Lowther (no8), located near the old lighthouse (Hodbarrow Beacon) and the end of the Old Sea Wall.
By 1910 the Old Sea Wall had slumped by 26', over half its height into the huge depression forming on what was the old foreshore, now behind the Outer Barrier.
The mine was breifly controlled by the goverment between 1917-1919. By the end of WW1, output again rose above 400,000 tons a year; the last time it would ever do so.
Hodbarrow mines now began a slow decline till its closure in the spring of 1968. However, the discovery in 1925 of a new ore body near to Haverigg called the Moorbank deposit, which was the deepest deposit at Hodbarrow at 90 fathoms (540'). Workings at Moorbank pit (no.11) and Redhills (no's.6 & 7) kept the mine going from 1938 till the mine's closure in1968, though only Moorbank was drawing ore by this time. During WWII output was between 62,000 tons and 91,000 tons, but by 1952 this was down to 51,000 tons and by 1961 to 33,000 tons and in 1967, its last full year, 27,000 tons were raised, although by the time the mine closed in March 1968 it had already raised 20,955 tons. In the 113 years of the mines existence over 25,000,000 tons of high grade haematite iron ore were raised, employed over 1350 people (not including contractors) and had sunk over 20 shafts, in addition it had over 40 miles of railway and tramways, built 2 lighthouses, 2 sea walls, changed the face of the land forever, and had helped to create the modern new town of Millom.