GEOLOGY

Our story begins about 400 million years ago in the Devonian Period when Britain was south of the equator, roughly where Argentina is today. Charterhouse was then in a river flood plain near the southern edge of a large chunk of land. The rivers washed sand down from hills to the north and dumped it all over what is now Devon and . Nowadays it forms a hard and relatively impervious reddish rock called Old Red Sandstone which now forms the caps of the Mendip anticlines eg Blackrock (1068'). Fig 1.

By the Carboniferous Period, about 370 million years ago, Britain had drifted north as far as the equator and Charterhouse lay offshore in a warm, shallow sea. Mud washed down into the sea again by rivers to the north, settled to form mudstone or grey, black or brown shale, like sandstone relatively impervious. Later, as the coastline retreated northwards, coral reefs grew up and in time formed a thickness of almost 800 metres of limestone; at Charterhouse this is dark grey and full of crinoid fossils (feathery starfish with long jointed stalks).

90 million years later a great upheaval pusfrecT the Mendip area up into a range of mountains, a series of anticlines. As these were gradually worn down (sandstone wash-off can be found at the Centre), the hard limestone, rock stood out as cuffed ringed mountains, surrounded by cliffs of scree (broken boulders). With this great upheaval the limestone faulted and jointed creating an impression that the hills were made from high building blocks, layer upon layer called strata, bedding planes. Water combined with carbon dioxide in the air so forming a solution of calcium hydrogen carbonate. This chemical erosion had two main effects; firstly, the production of temporary hard water which has the advantage of being rich in minerals, and secondly, the production of underground tunnels, passages, and calcita decorations.

Above the limestone H2O + CO2 = H2CO3 Water + Soil = Carbonic Acid

In the limestone H2CO3 + C3CO3 = Ca(HC03)2 Carbonic Acid + Limestone = Calcium Bicarbonate

In the Cave CA(HC03)2 = C02 + CaC03 + H2O Calcium Bicarbonate = Dioxide + Decoration

By about 210 million years ago, Britain had drifted up to the level of North Africa as it is today and conditions at Charterhouse were like the Sahara Desert is today. This was the Triassic Period when the sun beat down on a treeless, rocky landscape and occasional rainstorms caused floods which rushed through the limestone gorges mixing mud and sand with the scree. These jumbles of flood debris now form a rock called Dolomitic Conglomerate. At Charterhouse hot springs welled up from the deep cracks in the rocks and as the water neared the surface, its pressure dropped, so that minerals dissolved in it crystallised along the sides of the cracks and in the desert soils. Fig 2. The minerals included sulphides and carbonates of lead, calcium, magnesium, silver, zinc, iron and copper. The main metal ore is galena (lead sulphide), silver-grey, very heavy, breaking easily into sparkling cleavage cubes and occuring as veins, slabs, pockets or lumps. W I Stanton concluded " ... that presumably ore had been present at a higher level, in the 100 - 200' of limestone or conglomerate that was removed in solution and much of this ore must have migrated downwards, keeping-pace with the lowering of the ground surface and forming a progressively more concentrated deposit".

Future old mine workings followed the veins of galena, which have now disappeared. However, the surface remains of the workings show up on aerial photographs, so we can see where the veins used to run- The veins follow the joints (stress cracks) and faults (breaks) in the limestone.

The galena occurs in veins as specks and small crystals scattered in calcite (mineral which makes up limestone) or in lumps up to 3 inches across grown onto the calcite crystals filling the joints and faults. The thickness of the veins is not known exactly as they have been mined away and records are few. Catcott in 1756 stated that lead ore "lies in perpendicular and horizontal fissures, from a large vein which is about 2.ft broad, to a small one of 2 inches". The mine s topes (passages) were narrow, from 1 ft wide up to as wide as the widest veins. The depth of the stopes was up to 60 fathoms (110m!) though more often 20-30 fathoms. An old mining law of Mendip laid down that men killed by accident in the mines should have their bodies taken out and brought to Christian burial "although he be three score fathom under the earth". Fortunately for the miners, the water table on Mendip lies hundreds of feet below the surface, so that the depth of mines was probably limited only by the presence of ore.

There are no figures for early lead production at Charterhouse, but Green (1958)' estimates a total production for the Mendip lead mines since Roman times of around 100,000 tons of lead metal.

SOIL AND VEGETATION

Rock structures and their associated soils will influence the vegetation that grows in any area as will the related acidity, of the soil ie the pH value.

Old Red Sandstone soils are bleak and barren, poorly drained, acidic in nature and therefore frequented by gorse, bracken, heather and rushes on peaty, sandy loam. Carboniferous Limestone has a slightly acidic soil which forms barren, waterless uplands covered in grass which provides reasonable grazing land. Mainly a brown, silty loam, thin in layers. As the Mendips are mainly made of limestone we should expect the pH to be greater than 7 ie neutral to alkalii.

However, for over two thousand years the Charterhouse area has been subjected to the influence of lead mining and smelting. This industrial activity has had a marked effect on the vegetation of this region and in particular the lichen flora.

In September 1985 a contaminated land site investigation was carried out at Charterhouse by the Somerset County Analyst. These samples were taken within 200 metres of the Centre, were dried, ground, sieved and analysed using standard ministry of agriculture methods of analysis. The Department of Environment document "Guidance on the Assessment and Redevelopment of Contaminated Land" gives tentative trigger levels for various paramenters as a guide to the degree of contamination in a soil. The trigger level for lead is 2000mg/Kg in the soil. The area worked produced results of 3600mg/Kg to 24000mg/Kg for lead with certain areas showing a high zinc content. pH measurements taken by the Head of Centre correlate with the above research showing values as low as 3.6.

The Department of Botany, University of Bristol, produced results that also confirm the toxicity of Charterhouse and its Reserve.

Table 1 Lead (ppm) Zinc (ppm) Si SAMPLE A (soil) 4350 1800 5.2 SAMPLE B (soil) 15000 4500 6.3 SLAG 14000 51900

Table 2

Lichen Lead Sample Zinc Sample A 330 A Peltigera polydactyla 970 Cladonia furcata 710 Ceratodom purpureus 4340 A 234 A Stereocaulon pileatum 4610 B 960 B SLAG 816 SLAG

MENDIP MAN

Until about 10,000 years ago the earth was in the grip of ice. For tens of thousands of years ice sheets and glaciers thousands of feet thick covered most of the northern parts of Europe. This ice age began approximately 1.7 million years ago and may not yet have ended .... perhaps we are living in one of the warm periods which alternate with the colder periods when ice sheets and mountain glaciers advance towards the equator. In Britain the ice sometimes came as far as the Bristol Channel, but never to the Mendips.

The earliest traces of man in Europe are V2 million years old. Man first came to Britain during an interglacial period about V4 million years ago; actually the oldest remains are those of a woman who lived in what is now Kent. The climate was then warm enough for elephants and hippotami to live as far north as Norfolk. But with the onset of the next cold spell the few adventurous families which had reached Britain retreated south. They left Britain to the Arctic animals and plants which alone could survive in the permanently frozen ground that covered those parts of Britain not totally deadened by the vast ice-sheets. The Mammoth, Woolly Rhino, Wolf, Arctic Fox, Brown Bear and Cave Lion had the unwelcoming scene to themselves. No man had yet lived on Mendip.

As the ice retreated at V4 mile per year, man learnt to survive and hunt the animals closer and closer to the ice sheets.

So it was that during the last great advance of the ice sheets about 55,000 years ago (it advanced and retreated 4 times in all) there were men. living in several parts of Britain. They had crossed over to Britain by dry land from the continent during the last interglacial, and one place where they settled and tried to sit out the cold was on the . The Mendips were a comparatively good place to live, for the melting of the ice which, although not: a great layer on the surface, froze the ground solid, deepened the valleys and gorges and exposed caves formed in earlier warm periods. These caves offered some form of protection to the earliest Mendip people from the dangers which threatened on every side. Between 30,000 and 20,000 years ago the first hunting bands ventured into the caves of Burrington, Cheddar and Wookey. Sometimes they had to fight the very animals they had come to hunt; the Mammoth, Rhino and Hyena.

The cold, however, proved too much for them and these small bands of hunters withdrew to the warmer south, leaving behind them the traces of this first human occupation of the Mendips; worked flints, bones and antler tools. Most of the flint tools were of the Flake Blade type as opposed to the Core type, that is, they have been shaped from the flakes knocked off the piece of unworked stone, rather than from the core itself.

When the ice retreated for the final time about 13,000 years ago, hunters returned to the Mendips hard on the trail of the herds of reindeer and wild horses which had moved to the prairie-like grasslands that now covered the hills. The evidence of this second stage of occupation is a collection of different flint tools made of Blades, that is, long flakes. Also the remains of the humans themselves have been discovered. Cheddar man is 10,000 years old.

From the Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) period which lasted until 7000 years BC we move into the Mesolithic or Middle Stone Age. During this period the English Channel took its present shape. New people crossed from the present day continent bringing with them to the mainly wet, marshy, forested landscape of Britain a different way of life.

Some of these people" settled on the Mendip Hills although there are few traces of this period as it appeared they were of a nomadic type, frequently moving; fishing, fowling and gathering berries, nuts and roots. Between 3,500 and 1,800BC (Neolithic or New Stone Age) life was based upon a primitive form of farming. It was distinguished by the art of the potter and the grinding and polishing of stone and flint implements. This is the period from which leaf shaped flint arrowheads and bows of yew have been found. These earliest Mendip farmers lived in caves as well as in settlements in the open. Obvious remains of these people that can easily be seen on Mendip are the Long Barrows, which served as communal burial grounds for up to 50 people. Since the main distinction between these people and their predecessors was the fact that they farmed as well as hunted, it is not surprising that many axes used for clearing woodland for pasture have been discovered around Mendip. Many of these axe heads are of a green stone from Cornwall; Mendip stone not being hard enough.

Towards the end of this period the area accepted a migration of people from the continent; they brought with them a most distinct way of decorating their clay posts, their beakers or cups were bell-shaped and had symmetrical patterns cut into them. They have consequently been called the Bell Beaker people. They brought with them the earliest metal objects that have been found in Britain. Evidence of their existence on Mendip consists of fragments of pottery and metal objects. It is thought that it was they who were responsible for Gorsey Bigbury Henge at Charterhouse cl600 BC.

From this period until 500BC, The Bronze Age, the Mendip people buried their dead in the round barrows of which there are some 300 scattered over the hills, many of them at Beacon Batch and Tynings, suggesting a large organised population around Charterhouse (workings at Charterhouse Warren Farm Cave). There is not a great deal of evidence of these people on Mendip, only the odd bracelet, barbed flint arrowheads, one or two axe-heads and precise henges and circles with no clue as to their purpose.

It was thought at the end of this period that the metalsmiths began using lead in the manufacture of bronze (though not normally a constituent of bronze) perhaps from our own Reserve. The occurrence of lead objects (eg net sinkers) of'Mendip origin in the early Iron Age lake villages of Glastonbury and Meare shows that lead was worked in pre-Roman times. (Smelting possibly done in thick pottery crucibles placed in shallow holes protecting therefore its sides, with a charcoal fire on top and fanned by some means.)

Leading up to the invasion of the Romans, the most striking remains of the people were the hillforts such as the one at Dolebury. The question remains of course, what was their use? Were they military forts, retreats, towns or even commercial centres? Mixed farming was carried on in the area, that is, crops and animals much as today and from the air some ancient field shapes have been spotted while bones of celtic shorthorn cattle, sheep, pigs, goats and horses have been discovered in the caves. Evidence has also come to ligh of a seafood addition to the diet ie shells of cockles, mussels, oysters, scallops and cuttle fish along with supplements from hunting ie red and roe deer, wild boar, auroch, grey and barnacled geese, crane and capercaille. Other animal life in this much wooded environment would have included wolf, beaver, badger and wild cat.

Silver coins have also been discovered suggesting that Mendip lead was airead being used for its silver content. Trading also seems to have existed as it did in the south east of the country with Gaul and further afield. Again, we have such evidence as a gold coin of Marcus Marcius Manii Filius BC124-109 found in Wookey Cave.

The area was probably a nomansland between two tribes, the Dubonni to the north, and the Duritriges to the south.

In 55BC Julius Caesar visited the south east of the country and reported that it was thickly populated and reasonably civilized and very similar to Gaul. Iron Age Britain suffered a complex variety of developments due to differing migrant activity especially from Gaul. Historians have specified three periods/cultures as Iron Age A, Iron Age B and Iron Age C. Iron Age A •affected Yorkshire to the Severn Valley to the south east merging with the Bronze Age people in a mainly agricultural way of life based on Individual farms and small communities, perhaps due to insecurity, collected around or í a hillfort.

Iron Age B immigration, 350BC onwards, brought to Britain different lifestyles, a more war-like or security conscious people with highly distinctive ornamental metalwork. The local organised society of Iron Age A became more concentrated areas of power controlled by fewer hands. Iron Age C an advance political and cultural group, known as the Belgae, produced a political maturity, technical advancement, agricultural prosperity, an increase in trad (eg produce for wine and raw materials), and a consumer society. However, tribal jealouses and conflict increased due to differing levels and speeds of cultural advancement and territorial power struggles. It was a combination c anti-Roman feeling, aggressive tendencies and therefore the need to defend an guard Gaul along with one or two political problems in the Rhine area that caused the Romans to cross the Channel and eventually take control of Maen Dippa

Within a few years of the Claudian invasion the 2nd Augusta legion of Romans under the leadership-of. Vespasian attacking from the south had gained control of the lead mining area on Mendip, establishing a community around the now named Charterhouse area. The abbreviation VEB is all that indicates the name given to the area at this time as was embossed on some of the early lead ingots (pigs) BRIT.EX ARCVEB. Perhaps VEB ' .... has a translation in village?

Berta Lawrence (Somerset Legends 1973) suggests that "... since the Romans were firmly established in Gaul, especially Spain, and the relations between Gaul and the Britons had been close for over a hundred years before the conquest of Britain had begun, it is not likely that our country, was altogether cut off from Roman influence before the invasion proper. The speed with which the Mendip lead mines were worked for the Roman Government within six years of landing in 43AD, makes it seem probable that the Romans were well acquainted with Mendip lead, and that they may even have been purchasing it before they undertook to work it themselves".

Dobson in writing the Archaeology of Somerset in 1931 (Methuen & Co Ltd) raised an interesting point with reference to pre-Roman trading in metals. He suggests that a merchant, Joseph of Arithmathaea, later to be-a Christian missionary, regularly travelled to this country to collect tin from Cornwall and lead from the Mendips. He apparently brought with him on earlier expeditions his great-nephew, Jesus of Nazareth, who helped him as shipwright. They landed at Pilton creek or even Cheddar having navigated inland from Uphill and bought their lead from miners who came down to trade from Charterhouse. Story has it that Joseph and Jesus actually travelled onto the hills to and Charterhouse in AD15 through the acres of dense forest to the small primitive mining areas to trade in lead. Joseph continued to visit the area, even after Roman occupation and especially with the.improvements inaugerated by them.

Around Raines Eatch and Town Field a large military controlled mining sub-community was built by AD49 to create the chief source of lead for the Roman Empire on-a scale unprecedented in Britain... Military control in. the initial stages was presumably because of the importance of silver which they were able to-extract from the lead. Branigan & Fowler (Roman West Country 1976 D&C) believed "it would be logical to assume that mines were run first by the army, then by procuratorial agents and subsequently leased when circumstances permitted, though still under Imperial control. Lessees would mould their own name onto the face of the pig and each skilled party paid for the right of the monopoly for the exercise of their trade". One Mendip Trading Company is known to have been the NOVAEC Company, and two of the lessees, Tiberius Claudius Triferna and Gaius Nipius Asconius. Sir Richard Colt and the Rev John Skinner rector of Camerton, excavated the area in the C19 and found pottery, flue tiles, glass and coins so proving the existance of the Romans.

Archaeologists have recently been able to construct a more complete picture of the Roman complex using the aid of aerial photographs.

One large oval earthwork with an entrance at each end, known as the Amphitheatre, 31.5m x 24.25m, was excavated in 1908 which proved that it belonged to the Roman period and may have been used for the"miners amusement eg bull or bear baiting or dog or cock .fighting. Miners would have been slave labour, especially when prisoners of war became in short supply. However in time some paid labour would have been employed.

This expansion in the mining activity had obvious effects in and around what is now Blackmoor and Velvet Bottom; the now familiar lunar landscape had begun to take shape. Nineteenth century upon sixteenth century upon Saxon upon Romano-British. A great number of Roman objects have been picked up from time to time and when some of the refuse was being removed in the nineteenth century to extract the remaining lead a great collection of brooches was made (Bristol Museum),

Roman lead mining was all of the opencast type, the ore being shallow, therefore easy to obtain, and also rich in silver (0.4%) (see geology). The lead seems to have been extracted with the aid of a strong current of water, assisted by breaking of the stones with fire and cold water. The water was held in large reservoirs, similar to those used by the nineteenth century miners, and released when necessary. This method, called hushing, removed the top-soil so showing the ore-bearing rock.

The ore was smelted in low, shallow hearths to 300°C, The use of fire for this and for hushing would imply that large areas of woodland on Mendip would have been cleared over a fairly long period to make fuel. The presence of quantités of water at Blackmoor, held up in the reservoirs for ore processing must have been an important factor in the original establishment of the industry at Charterhouse. Could it be possible that they knew of the river system recently discovered under the Reserve by the Mendip Cave Group?

It is thought that the Romans had a very efficient smelting system, as their lead pigs are very pure and some seem to have been de-silvered. Charterhouse silver may have been made into coins, a hoard being found in 1846 on the site. (Claudius to Diocletian, a span of 84 years.) It is doubtful whether any true Roman furnaces have been discovered in the Mendips, although some people say that stone hearths found in the area are in fact of that era. Having stated that the Romans were very efficient in their methods they were somewhat extravagant in their processing as up to 25% of the lead extracted was left in the residue slag.*

The lead with its low smelting temperatures was called plumbum by the Romans (hence plumbing) and used for waterpipes, lining coffins, mixing with tin to make pewter and for decoration. Mendip lead was used for the lining and piping of the Roman Baths at Bath (Aqua Sulis). Mendip lead pigs, shaped in clay moulds and weighing up to 2001bs (91 kgs) have been found at Green Ore, Southampton and, of course, locally, showing the use of the Roman road leading to the east, connecting with the continent. Fig 3 lists the Mendip lead so far found at home and abroad but does not record scientific results recognising the use of the lead in those early years. It has now been verified that Mendip lead was used in the construction of a cistern at Pompeii before being buried by the action of Vesuvius in 79AD.**

* When lead is smelted in the open air it rapidly oxidises and changes into a crusty kind of material called Litharge, but any silver which may be in the lead is not affected in this way, and provided it is present in sufficient quantity, remains as a bead of metal. When the lead has completely oxidised the silver can easily be removed. This method is called cupellation.

** Nacher (1978 in Roman Britain) suggests that "somewhere, as yet unknown, factories for the manufacture of lead sheet must have existed, for it was the starting point for many finished objects".

Many suggestions have been put forward as to the possible ports of export.eg Sea Mills at Bristol, Uphill (Ad Axium) at Weston-Super-Mare, Bitterae at Southampton and Hamworthy in Dorset. I would like to suggest that Charterhouse lead was exported by road west to Uphill and by road east to Winchester and so south to Southampton.

Figure 3

RECORDED MENDIP PIGS Where Found Date Found Date of Pig

Wells 1530 164-169 AD Wookey 1544 49 AD Bossington, Hants 1783 60 AD Bruton (piece) C18 164-169 AD Claverton Down, Bath 1819 117-138 AD Raines Batch (3) 1822 Sidney Place, Bath 1822 117-138 AD Lillebonne 1840 195-211 AD 1853 49 AD Bristol (2) 1865 139-161 AD Charterhouse 1873 139-161 AD Charterhouse 1874 69-79 AD Charterhouse (pieces) (2) 1874 164-169 AD Charterhouse 1875 69-79 AD Charterhouse 1876 69-79 AD S t-Valery-S ur-S omme 1883 54-68 AD Bltterne, Southampton (2) 1918 69-79 AD Syde, Gloucestershire 1952 79 AD Green Ore (4) 1956 69-79 AD

NERONIS.AVG.BRITAN.L.II "(product) of Nero Augustus, British (lead). The Second Legion (produced it)."

EX ARGENT C.NIPI ASCANI XXX "From the lead silver works of Gaius Nipisu Ascanius 30". In the Reign of Nero (AD 54-68).

BRIT.EX ARG.VEB "British (lead) from the Veb .... lead-silver works."

IMP.VESPASIANI AVG "(product) of the Emperor Vespasian Augustus."

IMP CAES ÂNT0NINI AVE Pllpp "(product) of the Emperor Caesar Antoninus Augustus Pius, pater patrae."

D Elkington In C5 Somerset with less than 10,000 people distributed among flooded levels, large forests, moors .and uplands accepted as did other parts of the country an immigrant input eg Irish colonists, so causing a rapid social, political and linguistical change. The Mendips remained recognised as the most fruitful area for lead and silver and after the haphazard use of metals, bartering and dependancy upon foreign mints the gradual development of a stable currency would have meant that Charterhouse would have been exporting silver to the south east of England. The Charterhouse lead was also used for church roofing and the making of saltpans.

By the C9 decentralisation of mintage under strict royal control had taken place, the name of each mint being placed on its own coins. One such Saxon mint was at not far from the royal estate set up at Cheddar. Reference to the Charterhouse area can be.established through such divisions and parcels of land created by the Saxons. Blackdown, 'Black Hill'; Tynings, •Enclosure'; and 'Sheep Pasture'; all suggesting a continuation of habitats.

Another important factor arising in the late Anglo-Saxon period was the development of the custom of granting land by charter which allowed freedom from the handing of land father to son and permitted land to be given to the Church, especially relevant to the transfer of land at Charterhouse to the monks from Witham. Part of the new Charterhouse parish (2410 acres) was severed from the Manor of Ancient Demesne of Cedra and Alsebrugia (Cheddar and Axbridge).

What, of course, we must remember is that even by the Domesday period the population of Britain was reasonably small, approximately 1.5 million. Somerset, by 1086, had a population of 13,764 of which it was recorded 2110 were servi, the lowest scale in society synonomous with the plough and exploitation. This .15.3% easily surpasses the 9% for Britain as a whole. Cedra, and Alsebrugia (including now Charterhouse) had at this time a small population and of the land deemed fit for registration 1440 acres were woodland, 1440 pasture and 15 meadow. Among those not considered high up in the hierarchy of society were the Smith and the Miner although whose efforts were well appreciated, important craftsmen contributing tools, utensils, coins and jewellery.

In the 500 years leading up to 1066, Britain was settled by many different invaders, the last of which were the Anglo-Saxons, who settled in villages not towns and brought with them their own customs and laws. The Kings expected their people to keep good order and to keep the peace; it was the duty of all males aged 12 to 60 to see that the law was kept. The villages were organised into groups of ten families, called a tything, and if any member committed a crime, the others were obliged to bring him before the court (moot) and punish him. ' Serious crimes went to the hundred court headed by a Reeve who came under a Sheriff responsible to the King. I find it difficult to marry this disciplined society with the rough and difficult life of mining on Mendip.

The Middle Ages saw the continuation of the Tythings, hundred courts and Sheriffs although the punishments were more severe. Eventually the Sheriffs were replaced by the local Lord of the Manor and his court who each year chose the local Constable.

The first records of Charterhouse with reference to 'industry' came as part of an endowment made to Witham Friary by Henry II. Carthusian monks (shepherds) from La Chartreuse in France acquired an estate about 1180, probably Lower Farm, where traces of medieval buildings have been found. In 1189

King Richard I granted them charter to mine within the Royal Forest for lead and iron. 40 acres of woodland were later allocated for the smelting of ore. Lead was important for its usefulness for roofing and linking glass window panes. Control was probably kept until the dissolution of Churches in 1536.

The old lead miners were an almost unique race, a distinct class. They formed in every district where they worked a kind of State within a State, paying taxes on different footing to the ordinary Englishman. Their laws were not the laws of the realm, but of their own special minery courts.

The peculiar, unique laws and liberties of the old miners of Mendip were illustrated in an interesting occurrence in 1470, when they were established and confirmed and reduced to writing. This was an interesting survival of the meeting of the old folk-moots, the common assembly of the people in Saxon days and before, to settle matters of dispute in the districts or township. Ten thousand persons, we are told, met together near Green-Ore, under the chairmanship of the Lord Chief Justice to settle certain grievances which the miners complained of against the tenants of Lord Bonville of Chewton on Mendip.

"The old ancient occupation of miners in and upon Mendip, being the King's forest of Mendipp, within the County of Somerset, being one of the four staples of England, which hath been exercised, used and continued through the said forest of Mendipp from the time whereof no man living hath not memory, as hereafter doth particularly ensue the order."

"First that if any man, whosoever he be, that doth intend to venture his life to be a working in the said occupation, he first of all crave licence of the Lord of the Soy 11 where he doth purpose to work, and in the absence of his officers, as the head Reeve or Bailiff and the Lord, neither his officers can deny him."

"That if any Lord hath once given licence to any man to build or set up any hearth or washing house to wash, cleanse or blow ore, he that once hath leave shall keep it for ever or give it to whom he will, so that he doth justly pay his lot lead, which is the tenth pound which shall be blown on the hearth and also that he doth keep it tenantable as the custom doth require."

There were ten such rules, perhaps only one more is worth mentioning - the sixth:

"If any man of that occupation doth pocket or steal any lead or ore to the value of 13*72 P&zce the Lord or his Officer may arrest all his lead works house and earth, with all his groofs and works, and keep them as safely to his own use, and shall take the person' that has so offended and bring him where his House is, or his work, and all his tools and instruments which to the occupation belongs as he useth, and put them into the same house and set fire on all together about him, and banish him from that occupation before the miners forever." This punishment was called the burning of the bush - being fired from ones job?

The rather sparse records point to a steady, but fluctuating lead industry during the medieval times. Recorded by Leland in 1543 the Mendips were divided into four liberties (Wells, Chewton, Harptree and Charterhouse) and the mining activities came under the jurisdiction of four Lords Royal. Also, in the 16th Century, appear the first copies of the miners customs (the oulde auncyent custum of the mynerys in and uppon the Quyns maiestes forest of Mendip), which set out in detail regulations for the mining industry on

Mendip, including provisions to avoid cattle poisoning by water from the ore washing pits or buddies. The industry reached a peak of prosperity between 1600 and 1670. Most mining was on a small, individual scale in 'grooves' or shallow shafts and the nearness of pitches led to constant clashes. The independent miners paid a royalty of 10%.

Some of the claims made at the time were very unusual eg a miner could claim a site by digging a hole in a vein of ore, standing in it waist deep and throwing a law pick, which he collected from the Land Reeve, to both sides. Where the pick landed marked the edge of his claim. Besides the pick, fire was used to split the rock until gunpowder was introduced.

Two contemporary 17th Century accounts gave a flavour of what the miners' work must have been like. The rev Loseph Glanvil, vicar of Frome, wrote in 1668: "....The Groove is 4 foot long, 2V2 f°ot broad, till they meet a stone, when they carry it as they can. The Groove is supported by Timber of a Divers bigness, as the place gives leave. A piece of an arms bigness, will support 10 tun of Earth.... If they cannot cut the rock, they use Fire to anneale it (see footnote) laying on Wood and Coale, and the Fire so contriv'd, that they leave the Mine before the operation begins, and find it dangerous to enter again, before it be quite clear'd of the Smoak; which hath killed some.... They convey out their materials in Elme-buckets drawn by Ropes. The Buckets hold about a Gallon. Their Ladders are of Ropes.... They beat the Oar with an iron flat piece; cleanse it in Water from the dirt; sift it through a Wire-sive. The Oar tends to the bottom, and the Refuse lies at top".

"There is a flight in the smoak, which falling upon the Grass, poysons those Cattel that eat of it. They find the taste of it upon their lips to be sweet, when the smoak chances to fly in their Faces. Brought home, and laid in their houses, it kills Rats and Mice. If this flight mix with the water, in which is Oar is wash't, and be carried away into a streame, it hath poisoned such Cattle, as have drunk of it after a Current of 3 miles. What of this flight falls upon the sand, they gather up to melt in a Slagg-hearth, and make Shot and Sheet-lead of it."

The philosopher John Locke, who lived at Pensford Manor, wrote in 1666;

"..... I rode to Minedeep, with an intention to make use of it there in one of the deepest gruffs (for so they call their pits) I could find: the deepest I could hear of was about 30 fathom, but the descent so far either from easy, safe or perpendicular, that I was discouraged from venturing on it. They do not, as in Wells, sink their pits strait down, but as the cranies of the rocks gives them the easiest passage; neither are they let down by a rope, but taking the rope under their arm, by setting their hands and legs against the sides of the narrow passage, clamber up and down, which is not very easy for one not used to it. Since I could not get down into the gruff I made it my business to enquire what I could concerning them: the workmen.... could apprehend no other minerals but lead ore, and believed the earth held nothing else worth seeking for: __ . Sometimes the damps catch them, and then, if they cannot get out soon enough, they fall into a swoon, and die in it, if they are not speedily got out; and as soon as they have them above ground, they dig a hole in the earth, and there put their faces, and cover them close up with turfs; and this is the surest remedy they have yet found to revive them. In deep gruffs they carry down air by the side of the gruff, in a little passage annealing - firing against the rock.

from the top; and that the air may circulate the better, they set up some turfs on the lee side of the hole, to catch, and so force down the fresh air: but if these turfs be removed to the windy side, or laid close over the mouth of the hold, those below find it immediately by want of breath, indisposition, and fainting....."

Almost all the Inhabitants of Shipham were miners, as Coliinson reported in 1791: "There are upwards of one hundred of these mines now working, many of which are in the street, and some in the very houses." And this despite laws forbidding mining on highways. As a result of this intense activity, mined grooves or gruffs covered the land, producing "gruffy ground", and huge quantities of ore were carted off to the smelting works owned by the Lord Royal. This was to ensure the deduction of the lot lead, and besides, smelting could only be done in the few places on Mendipf such as at ffookey, where there was enough running water and where this water would not contaminate drinking supplies. The system did not always work smoothly, as some Charterhouse miners were accused of stealing the silver which the Bishop claimed, and sometimes miners were attacked by armed bands, who stole their ore. Mendip silver probably found its way Into coinage of the Realm, where a rose below the bust of the monarch indicated the presence of West Country silver.

Gradually through the 18th Century, the more accessible ore veins were worked out, making lead production less attractive. In 1825 a final blow to the industry came when the duty on imported lead was greatly lowered, and by the 1840's lead mining on Mendip had practically finished. Also in the 18th Century, mining activity on Mendip began to search for Calamine in connection with the Bristol brass industry (Brass = 70% Cu + 30Z 2n).

SLAGGING

The Mendip Hills Mining Company began prospecting at Charterhouse in 1844, using Cornish mining techniques. They were able to raise large sums of capital from shareholders to search for lead deep below the workings of "the ancients". Managed by the deceitful Peter Stainsby, the Company poured money into a series of deep shafts (70m), but found very little ore. The Cornishmen found to their cost what "the ancients" had known all along, Mendip ore does not lie deep. The Company managers and certain "anonymous shareholders" (Stainsby as manager and shareholder?), wrote glowing accounts of how promising the explorations were and had these published to calm the general shareholder who would have been frequently asked to donate money. Until 1856 the Company's operations were a financial disaster with only one small dividend being paid.

A typical shaft was 2.5m square, timbered where necessary, fitted with wooden ladders and platforms down one side for 'footway', the remainder of the space reserved for hauling. Around the mouth of the shaft was a flat area of tip, probably with a horse whim close by. The four main shafts in the Ubley Rakes are Stainsy's, Somers', Barwell's and New Shaft.

Soon it was obvious that no major lead deposits lay below the workings of "the ancients", but that their slags or wastes contained much as yet unextracted lead. The Company, therefore, switched its efforts to working the spoil heaps and bought a lease on Lord Clifton's land in 1846 (Velvet Bottom) and drove a trench up the valley towards Charterhouse. This drained the water from Blackmoor which had previously flooded the valley and it exposed two beds of rich spoil material. The richest of the spoils were the fine sandy 'slimes* or 'washings of the ancients', which contained up to 40% or more of lead. The slimes could be dressed, or concentrated, directly whereas coarser material had to be crushed first and this was done with rollers or by beating. The bits of galena (lead ore) were then separated from the lighter spoil material by washing, using the principle of gold panning. This had originally been done in trough 'buddies' in which the lead-rich pieces sank and the lighter rubbish could be sluiced off.

The Cornishmen introduced an improved circular buddle (Fig 3). In these water was poured into the middle of the buddle (fed by wooden troughs, 'launders') and a radial pole with brushes on it stirred the water around until it escaped from the rim, washing the waste outwards and leaving the lead concentrated towards the centre. This process required a good supply of running water and the Company picked the most reliable stream in the area, which now sinks into Longwood Swallet. They had.to dam and channel it into Velvet Bottom along a wooden aqueduct supported on stilts.

By 1847, 20 men were working the slag grounds, and a carriage road and horse-drawn tramway had been built to transport ore to the furnace sites (Blackmoor and Velvet Bottom). Smelting was done by heating the ore in a number of small coke-fired furnaces assisted with bellows, all to vaporize the lead. Smoke and lead vapour were condensed in a series of horizontal flues which lead to a chimney. To recover the lead-rich soot from the walls of the flues orphans from Cheddar poor-house were engaged; their average life-expectancy as cleaners was reputed to-be 18 months.

Meanwhile, the lead-polluted waters from the buddies in Velvet Bottom had been conveniently diverted into the nearest sinkhole, to reappear at Cheddar in the town's drinking supply. The Cheddar people were soon up in arms! On

RECONSTRUCTION OF BUDDIE PIT HGR 507561 ™-~-—~

sacking,brushwood elm boards cut in triangular shapes or gorse. top wall paddles/b rushes retaining paddled clay base wall donkey yoke and (9cm) pole

around central post pivot (w=44cm central pivot " to 7cm at centre; 2»2m long) (dáam=10cmíl=24cm) 8.5m

Buddie pits were used to separate lead ores from waste. Water and ore (crushed and waste) was added to the buddle. A donkey, walking round, separated ores from waste which was done with hanging brushes (sacks). Lead finished up. in the centre of the huddle floor which is higher Elm flooring may have been used to facilitate removal. Most buddle pits outside of Cornwall have stone flooring-

23 June 1848, a gang of at least 50 Cheddar inhabitants smashed up the aqueduct which carried the Longwood Stream to Velvet Bottom. The mine supervisor reported that the troughs "were broken in every direction for more than a mile". The ensuing court case was won by the MHMC, despite the defence submission that the people of Cheddar "were only exercising their right to prevent the poisoning of their water". The Hundred of Winterstoke were ordered to pay £140 damages.

Perhaps the courts were prejudiced against the local population with some justification, as the area was noted for its violence and lawlessness. Hiss Hannah More, the noted educational pioneer, wrote in 1859 that the people of Shipham and were "savage and depraved almost beyond those of Cheddar, brutal in their nature, ferocious in their manner. No constable dared venture into Shipham for fear of being killed and thrown down an old mineshaft". This violence could have been due to "lead on the brain". Certainly it produced some spectacular inter-village battles. Shipham miners who trudged across Blackdown on the 'slaggers way* to find work at the Charterhouse or St Cuthbert's mines had to fight their way past a picket of Charterhouse women who were determined that their men should get what little work was available.

In 1849 the MHMC acquired the slag grounds at Blackmore, Ubley Warren and Stevens' Farm. As the Blackmoor Stream had a very variable flow, drying up in Summer, a slag dam was built to contain a reservoir which would provide a reliable water supply for the buddies below. The new forced-draught blast furnace built at Blackmoor was fitted with a 50" fan driven by a steam engine which drew its water from the reservoir. The effect, of this fan was to vaporize up to 75% of the lead content and 800 mi+rsí of horizontal flues were built to condense the smoke. These long flues have now been restored by the Mendip Society and Somerset County Council. At their west end are the ruins of the smelter as well as the boiler house and engine house.

Attached to the Blackmoor smelting works was a Pattinson Plant, set up in 1855. This recovered silver from the wastes from the final stage of lead purification, when it is cast into pigs. The lead crystallizes out of the final melt, leaving silver in the molten dross. This can be concentrated by decanting from one assay pot to another. The narrow flue of the Pattinson Plant can be seen running up hill for about 75' to the base of a chimney, close to the Reserve car park. In 1865 326 tones of lead and 1300ozs of silver are recorded as having been found.

Though production of lead had reached a respectable level by the 1850's, the MHMC shareholders were getting very little for their investments. An investigation revealed that Stainsby had embezzled vast sums from the company over a period of years, and he was put through the bankruptcy courts. Shortly afterwards, Mr Stevens of Stevens' Farm, sued MHMC for damage to his living due to air pollution from the smelting works at Blackmoor. He won and was awarded £500. The company never recovered and was taken over in 1861 by a Cornish mining company, Teffry and Co of St Austell. The manager, Mr Rogers, lived in Bleek House. They improved the smelters at Blackmore and operated successfully up until 1878 when on-site smelting was banned. The buddies remained in use until 1885, with concentrated material being sent to Bristol for smelting. The price of the lead at this time was £11 per ton, with men's wages 12s a week.

INDUSTRIAL ARCHAEOLOGY AT CHARTERHOUSE

An experimental scheme was atteraped in 1967 co-ordinating Somerset schools in an investigation of the site of the Pattinson Plant, the buildings which dealt with the extraction of silver, apparently set up in 1855. The Pattinson Plant extraction process relies on the fact that when lead solidifies from the melt, it does so by forming crystals in the still molten mass; nearly all the silver remains in the latter. Thus, by constantly transferring the molten part from one assay pot or mould to another, a silver rich concentrate could be obtained. The primary intention was to ascertain a ground plan of the buildings whose overgrown foundations remained, foundations of walls composed of the local carboniferous limestone, probably taken from an adjacent small quarry and the terrace on the hillslope which was cut to contain the range.

On the night of 10 July 1968 a massive flood of water swept down the Blackmoor Valley causing the roadway to collapse. Orders were given for this track to be reinstated, and, not realising that excavations were in progress, the contractors took the nearest visible stone to fill the gap; can you believe from where? Justification for archaeology.

As can be seen on the diagram, the foundations of four rooms were found, along with signs of a flue and a chimney situated 175' to the north.

An analysis of one of the lead samples found, carried out at Bristol City Museum, gave the following results:

Weight : 49.34 gms Specific Gravity : 11.17 (sg o lead = 11.34) f Contents • Silver 0.39% 0.62% Arsenic 0.07% Small Zinc Tin traces

Since the Pattinson Plant process could take the silver content of lead much lower than 0.39%, it may be assumed that the lead slug was a sample taken at a stage part way through the cupellation process.

SILVER OUTPUT : 1858-187 '8(oZs) 1858 1295 1864 2660 1859 950 1865 1300 1860 850 1866 1488 1861 • 850 1867 1700 1862 1025 1874 400 1863 1000 1877 1555 1878 1555

CAS/SJA/KP(03E184)