Stanhope Lead Mines Deeds

Deeds, letters and papers relating to lead mines named Birks Grove, Coves, Dodd, Thimbleby Hill, and others at Low Bishopley, in Stanhope parish, Co. Durham and to their owners and operators, and also to lead mining in Northumberland at Bulbeck Manor. The material in this collection records the activities of individual mines in the era before the zenith of industrial lead processing.

The North Pennines were a major source of lead ore, with several centres of mining and processing. In Weardale there were many mineral resources, which came into the possession of the Bishop of Durham in the twelfth century, and passed in the nineteenth century to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. By the nineteenth century the extraction, smelting and refining of lead had become a major industry in the area, although it was to disappear by the middle of the twentieth century.

By document type, and then in chronological order.

Open for consultation.

Deposited through the British Records Association (1118) in 1960 and 1962 by Messrs Payne, Hicks, Beach & Co., solicitors, 10 New Square, Lincoln's Inn.

Online catalogue, available at online catalogue