Back to castleton

The Crushing Circle

Here we are at the crushing circle near to Odin Mine.   Whilst it was the lead miner himself who went down hundreds of metres of ladderways to dig out the lead ore, it was his family who were involved in sorting out the rocks that were brought up to the surface.

In order to prepare the rocks for extracting the lead, they were brought over from the mine and then sorted and washed by the women and the children.

In order to crush the lead ore, a huge mill stone was used which can still be seen in the landscape today.  This was attached by means of a wooden shaft to a horse, which walked around the circle crushing the stone as it went.  Once the rocks had been crushed, they were more easily transported by mule to the top of the hills or bole hills where the high winds fanned the furnace to provide enough heat to separate the pure metal from the lead ore.  The molten lead flowed out of the furnace and was collected as ‘pigs of lead’.

Interview with Brian Woodall – mining [mpg : 13Mb]