Whetstone Mining in the Blackdown Hills
By Andrew Westcott
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Introduction To This Project
I have a reasonably healthy interest in industrial archæology and since moving up onto the Blackdown Hills in East Devon, the history of whetstone mining in the area has caught my attention.
Despite the advancing years and the gout, I've done the legwork; I've slipped up, got covered in mud, been bruised, cut, scratched and have dragged reluctant companions kicking and screaming through what seemed like miles of brambles and fallen trees, but I've finally succeeded in visiting most of the main whetstone mining sites.
While taking meaningful photographs in the middle of a thicket is painful, technically challenging and generally futile, I have done my best to record some of the remains of the old mines and the least inept of my photographic attempts appear in the "Investigating The Remains" section further down the page.
Little was recorded locally about these whetstone mines, and most of the information we have about them comes from accounts written by geologists of the time, notably Dr. Fitton and Rev. Downes who took advantage of the tunnels to examine the geology and also collected fossils brought out by the miners.
This information needs a bit of digging to find, so I've brought the main details together here to make life easier for the casual researcher. Where appropriate, I've quoted historic texts directly rather than trying to reword them for the sake of it and provided the name of the author and date of publication, along with links at the bottom of the page which in most cases go into far more detail, should anyone require it.
I welcome any additional information about whetstone mining in the area, whether it be factual or stories passed down so please e-mail me if you think you may have something of interest. If I get enough correspondence I will consider creating a section just for this, as anything could be relevant and of interest to others.
So what's a whetstone?
A whetstone is the name given to an abrasive stone of suitable composition and shape, used to sharpen or 'whet' bladed tools.
As luck would have it, beneath the western side of the Blackdown Hills there is (or was) a hard, abrasive rock which lent itself superbly to the job of sharpening scythes. Initially, suitable stones would probably have been found in disturbed areas of ground or protruding from the banks of streams high up on the hills, but demand led to attempts to mine the stone directly.
The stone proved to be of exceptional quality and the market for it increased accordingly, creating the economic climate for whetstone mining to flourish here. The finished product was a high quality scythe stone known as a Devonshire Batt, hundreds of thousands of which were manufactured and distributed around the south of England and beyond.
An example of a Devonshire Batt.
With permission: Hemyock Castle
It is generally accepted that whetstone was mined around the western side of the Blackdown Hills from the 1600s onwards, but by the late 1800s most of the mines had been worked out: "The whetstone pits are now nearly exhausted, and only two or three remain open." - Downes (1880). Around this time mechanical reaper-binders were becoming available which were replacing the man & scythe, and in the early 1900s, artificial whetstones made of carborundum started to appear, removing the need to search for further sources of this natural abrasive.
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First, A Little Geology
The Blackdown Hills in Devon is a plateau which rises to around 900 feet in the west, cut through by streams and rivers which have left many deep valleys. Simply put, the hills consist of a substrate of triassic mercia mudstone overlain with a layer of cretaceous upper greensand formation which tends to be between 50 and 100 feet thick or so.
The greensand is itself overlain in most areas with a layer of clay-with-flints of variable thickness which gives the greensand some protection from erosion. The upper greensand layer is responsible for the characteristic flat top of the region, the edges of which often exhibiting a steep escarpment; below these often wooded escarpments the ground levels out somewhat and generally gives way to pasture land.
The brown region (dead bracken) nicely illustrating the greensand layer forming the plateau
It is the upper greensand formation that is of particular interest here, as it is within this deposit that siliceous concretions occur, these being a particular type of hard but porous sandstone consisting of fine grains of silicon compounds in a matrix: "The stone is a quartz-muscovite-tourmaline grit" - Moore (1978). The different layers present within the greensand exhibited grains of different sizes, and certain layers of rock became highly prized for making 'Devonshire Batts', the name given to the finished whetstones from this area.
In 1836, Dr. Fitton made this observation about the beds to be found within the greensand and the thickness of the deposits:
"The following is a sectional list of the beds in one of the principal sithe-stone pits at Punchey Down, which, I was informed, was a fair representative of the whole:
1. Reddish sand rock, extending upwards to the top of the hill.
2. "Fine vein"; Concretions of firmer consistence; the best for sithe-stones. 0' 2" to 1' 0"
(Shells are found in all the strata here, but abound remarkably in this one, and in the "rock" beneath it.)
3. "Top sand rock"; sand with irregular concretions; of no use . 5' 0" to 4' 0"
4. "Gutters"; concretions of stone in 4 or 5 courses, in the sand. 3' 0" to 5' 0"
This bed is that most commonly used for sithe-stones.
5. "Burrows"; stone and sand of the same kind, but used only for building. 2' 0" to 3' 0"
6. "Bottom stone"; a range of concretions, affording excellent sithe-stones. 0' 2" to 0' 6"
(These concretions sometimes extend downwards, even to 5 feet, in the sand.)
7. "Rock sand"; chiefly sand, with fewer concretions; of no use. 4' 0"
8. "Soft vein"; concretions which afford excellent sithe-stones. 0' 2" to 0' 6"
The strata below are not known to the workmen. The total thickness, therefore, of the strata which furnish the material for sithe-stones, including the rejected sand and rubbish, is from 12 to 18 feet, the whole of which is removed in cutting the drifts or galleries."
- Fitton (1836)
The Geological Bench
At locations where a steep escarpment is present, an intermediate shelf or 'bench' can sometimes be seen which occurs at a variable height but typically 10 to 25 metres or so below the top of the plateau. It appears to have been created by differences in erosion resistance, as in places where the bench has been excavated by machinery, a dense layer of sandstone is in evidence which seems to be protecting the greensand below from erosion.
This intermediate flat zone or 'bench' may appear to be a man-made pathway following the contour, and indeed, it is often used as such but it is, in most cases, a natural occurrence; an example can be seen in the whetstone mining area above Blackborough village, albeit much disrupted by the mining activity. Such benches were often bulldozed to improve the pathway for access to the woodlands by forestry companies making their natural origin less obvious, this being the case with the path through Rhododendron Wood, Kentisbeare.
Simplified cross-section of a Blackdown Hills escarpment
Dumping mine waste over the side of such a bench would eventually increase its width, sometimes dramatically as has happened at several locations. The spoil heaps in areas devoid of a natural bench tend to occur at varying levels and therefore don't create a level region; such an area can be seen east of the road at Hembury Fort. I'm surprised that no mention seems to have been made of these benches by geologists, and it seems to be accepted that the waste alone is responsible for forming the level bench or track; even a cursory examination of the mine entrances at such sites will indicate otherwise.
Image 1 |
Image 2 |
By way of proof, this pair of images show nice virgin geological benches which haven't been molested by whetstone miners or bulldozers. These are in wooded escarpments outside the mining area and sit an estimated 10 - 15 metres below the plateau top with a bench width varying between 2 and 10 metres or so. The bench in image 1 is particularly wide at this point with the escarpment falling away steeply to the left. The bench in image 2 runs around the contour for quite some distance, then as the escarpment turns outwards, the bench turns inwards, disappearing into the hillside as can be seen.
The whetstone mines were generally driven into the hill from such a bench so it seems to me that the presence of a bench was an indicator to the miners that raw whetstone may be present and at what level to begin digging their tunnels. The flat platform also of course provided a useful pathway to access the mines with the waste material being conveniently dumped over the side of the escarpment.
Geology & Palæontology Samples
Here is a selection of rock samples I have collected during my expeditions.
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Image 3 shows a piece of sandstone concretion around 6 inches across, illustrating the irregular shape typical of those formed within the greensand. This piece shows the characteristic protrusions often seen and contains part of a fossil shell.
Image 4 shows part of an iron-rich nodule, originating from a depth of a couple of feet or so on the top of the western plateau. It is written that nodules like this were extracted from surface digs around the Blackdown Hills in the distant past for smelting to produce iron and it has been suggested that the multiple pits to be found above the escarpment at North Hill are iron ore extraction pits; I disagree, as these depressions are clearly where underground whetstone mining galleries have collapsed.
Image 5 shows some broken fossil shells in a piece of concretion, width around 3 inches. Despite the coarse grains, the details of the shell pieces have been well preserved. This was a surface find so the level of origin is unknown, although it was fairly high up in the sequence.
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Image 6 shows a small fossil, about 20mm across, of what I believe to be a murex calcar, a predatory gastropod. It was found in the cretaceous upper greensand, and is attached to what appears to be its last victim, an unidentified bivalve mollusc. The spines on the shell are reminiscent of present-day murex species.
Image 7 shows part of a fossilised ammonite originating from the upper greensand, and I'd estimate this specimen would have been about a foot across if complete. There appears to be considerable iron staining through the core of this fossil.
Image 8 shows a collection of small fossil shells, the largest about 30mm across, picked out of the greensand near the top of the deposit which had been exposed by bulldozing. Despite looking as if they'd come straight from the beach, the shell material has been completely replaced with silica.
Image 9
Pieces of unfinished whetstones
Image 9 shows some pieces of broken, unfinished whetstones which were found on the spoil heaps of whetstone mines which I have retained with the landowners' permission. All show good examples of tool marks; the top two pieces, although appearing to be part of the same stone, came from different areas. The miner appears to have got as far as starting to put a bevel on the lower one before it broke; I don't know what percentage of stones would be rejected due to breakages, but if one did break, I'm sure the miner would have sworn at it, tossed it down over the spoil heap and started on the next one.
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Whetstone Mining
A whetstone mining operation would begin by choosing a location and digging a horizontal tunnel into the side of an escarpment, creating what is known in mining parlance as an adit or drift. The greensand the mines were dug into wasn't loose like beach sand, but it was still quite soft: you could dig at it with a pencil, for example.
The miners employed basic hand tools to work with, and wooden wheel barrows were used to move the material out of the mine; there were no trolleys on rails in these mines, just hard work.
As the tunnel progressed, the ground would require support to prevent it collapsing; this would be achieved by using a pair of vertical timbers, one on each side, and a third squared-off timber resting across the top of the uprights to support the roof in the manner of a lintel. This inverted 'U' structure would be repeated along the entire length of the tunnel.
The distance between the supporting structures would have depended on how poor the 'ground' was, varying from continuous timbering in loose sandy areas to perhaps every yard or so in firmer ground, and probably also depended on the courage or foolhardiness of the miner. In the one known photograph of the interior of a whetstone mine (Stanes 1993, fig. 6), the timbers seem to be about a foot apart.
Image 10
Whetstone mine tunnel
Although the entrance to these tunnels would be barely big enough for a man and barrow to fit through, they would open out significantly in width and height further in with multiple tunnel branches and chambers as the miners searched for and extracted the valued rock. The raw whetstone concretions tended to occur in random clumps within the sand rather than as a continuous seam, so finding them tended to involve guesswork and the removal of a lot of sand before a miner encountered any.
Once a cluster of concretions was found, a gallery would be excavated to allow all the pieces of rock to be extracted. Such galleries could apparently be quite large and must have been hideously unsafe; the only way this could be done would be by leaving many pillars of material intact to support the roof, and it has been said that once the gallery had been worked out, attention then turned to mining the supporting pillars, the destruction of which allowed the gallery to finally collapse.
Some of the pieces of rock were quite large, so if necessary they were reduced in size to something a man could carry; accounts from the time suggest this was about the size of a horse's head, which seems reasonable. Once outside, the chunk of rock would be carefully broken up making use of the stratification lines along which it could be more easily split, into pieces of a suitable size and carved into roughly shaped whetstones at the mouth of the mine.
This practice of rough-shaping the stones on-site reduced the weight of material which needed to be taken away from the mine, as the final shaping and dressing of the stones was done elsewhere usually by the women of the families, a process known as 'rubbing the stones'; this phrase apparently caused some amusement among certain members of the community.
It would seem that each mine may have employed several people rather than being a one-man operation; typically there'd be a miner working the face, a couple of kids working as 'sand drivers' to wheel out waste sand and rocks and someone somewhat more skilled, the 'cutter,' to cut and shape the stones at the mouth of the mine. There were also the women and girls who were involved in the final dressing of the stones.
Whetstone Production
The following text is quoted directly from Dr. Fitton's book published in 1836, and being such a detailed description of whetstone production, it leaves little for me to add.
"The strata which afford the whet-stones are about eighty feet below the top of the hill, to which they are parallel. The mines (or 'pits' as they are called) are driven in direct lines into the hill almost horizontally, and in some cases to considerable distances. The stoney masses from which the sithe-stones are cut, are concretions of very irregular figure, imbedded in looser sand, and though very irregular in shape, marks of the stratification of the sand can be traced on their outside.
The masses of which the sithe-stones are made, vary from six to eighteen inches in diameter, and the beds which afford them would form a total thickness of about seven feet, of which about four are fit for that purpose; the looser stone at the top and bottom being employed for building.
Watercolour painting by Peter Orlando Hutchinson, dated 1854
With permission: South West Heritage Trust & East Devon AONB
The sithe-stone men take from the owners of the soil the privilege of digging for stones, leaving forty yards on each side between the drifts (or 'pits' as they are called). There is no limitation as to depth, and the drifts are commonly pushed to about 300 yards inwards, greater distances not repaying the labour of bringing out the sand.
When first taken out, the stone is greenish and moist, and can be chopped with ease. The tools employed are a sort of axe or adze with a short handle (fig. 2.) called a "basing-hammer" which is ground to a sharp edge. These are made at the adjacent village of Kentisbeare. The other tools are picks without any peculiarity of structure, and "hollowing-shovels" (fig. 1.) for digging the masses of stones out of the sand.
For the purpose of cutting the stones, a vertical post of wood, or 'anvil' is so fixed in the ground as to stand between the knees of the workman, who sits upon a sort of bench built of stone, with some strong pieces of old leather attached as a defence to his left knee.
Image 11
Basing hammer, mid-1800s
Photo used with permission
He first, with the edge of his 'basing-hammer' splits from the blocks upon his knee, long portions approaching to the shape of the sithe-stones; and then cuts or chops them down nearly to the required size, upon the anvil and his knee, just as a carpenter cuts timber with an adze. After thus being rudely shaped, the stones are hewn to the proper dimensions with a large 'hammer', and then rubbed down by women, on a large stone of the same kind; and when dried they are fit for sale.
The stones when finished vary from about ten to twelve inches in length; some have the shape of a portion of an almond, with the ends and sides cut square, and about two inches by one and a half in thickness; others are almost cylindrical, but smaller at each end, with the sides a little curved; the diameter in the middle about two inches.
A good workman can cut out of the blocks about seven dozen of the stones per day. They are sold by the makers chiefly to one merchant at Honiton, who supplies the retail dealers. The prices (in 1825) varied from 2s. per dozen for the finest stones, eleven to twelve inches long, down to 8d. a dozen for the coarsest, ten inches in length."
- Fitton (1836)
The basing hammer (or basing axe as it is also known) seems to be a unique development for the whetstone mining around the Blackdown Hills, and it presumably evolved over many generations of workers and blacksmiths into the design shown above, a tool ideally suited for the job. It's interesting to note that according to Stanes (1993), no specialised tool like this seems to have been developed in other whetstone mining areas around the country.
It has been suggested that at the period of peak output of the Blackdown whetstone mines, perhaps as many as 10,000 of the sharpening stones were produced by the mines in a week, but this does seem rather a lot as that amounts to half a million stones a year. (Source: Blackdown Hills National Landscape).
Let's analyse this:
it seems that there were about 24 mines active during the period of peak production according to Chalk (1910), so let's assume no-one worked on a Sunday and that the miners worked elsewhere, harvesting perhaps, for around 40 days a year. That would require each mine to produce an average of around 76 scythe stones each working day to reach that half million stones a year. That's a heck of a lot of whetstones, but it does seem possible going by the information given by Dr. Fitton earlier; I'm just surprised that an industry of this magnitude didn't leave a bigger dent in history.
By the late 1800s most of the readily accessible rock had been mined out despite much reworking of old ground to locate more of the rock. Trying to re-open an old worked-out collapsed mine would have been pretty pointless, so new tunnels were dug a short distance away from the old collapsed tunnels and driven in parallel to or above them, to hopefully find new ground that hadn't been fully exploited.
Evidence of this can be seen in many areas, and in some locations as many as six tunnel entrances can be seen next to each other, indicating that multiple drifts were dug parallel to each other to improve the chances of the re-working finding fresh areas. In most cases it seems that the re-working operation was fairly unsuccessful, as the spoil heaps associated with the new tunnels tend to be small; this suggests the miners either encountered a lot of space underground due to the old workings or simply found the operation to be uneconomical.
A Risky Business
The ground the mines were driven into was sandy in nature and although easily dug, it required substantial timbering to prevent the tunnel from collapsing; it seems however that some miners chose to forgo the minimal expense of the timber and skimped on the supports to save a pittance. Given this, it may come as no surprise that tunnel collapses and the resultant deaths were common in this industry, although the risk of being crushed or suffocated underground wasn't the miners' only problem.
Whetstone miners were reasonably well paid compared to the local farm workers, earning perhaps triple their income; however, the extra money came at a cost as exposure to silica dust, both while underground and while shaping the extracted rock took its toll and most suffered from silicosis to some degree or another. Although this condition would be debilitating, it alone may not necessarily prove fatal; however, when coupled with an attack of tuberculosis which was common at the time, death would be the likely outcome.
"The censuses show that of 151 miners recorded in 5 censuses only 4 were over 60, 19 were over 50, and 118 were under 49. Few seemed to have reached any great age, although many may have left the mines for healthier work as they grew older."
- Stanes (1993)
John Rookley - The Last Whetstone Miner
John Rookley
Photo by Derek Rugg
Although whetstone mining in the Blackdown Hills was big business for a good 200 years, by the late 1800s it was in serious decline as the mines had become worked-out with little new stone to be found despite much reworking of old ground. In the early 1900s the new artificial carborundum stones had mostly replaced Devonshire Batts as the tool of choice for sharpening blades, and considering that the scythe was by now 'old tech', natural whetstones had become pretty much obsolete.
Despite this, a solitary miner kept working in his mine, producing natural scythe stones for those still adhering to the old methods of harvest. It is well documented that John Rookley was the last whetstone miner working the Blackdown Hills, finally retiring in 1929 and moving to South Wales. The photo here is of him, and this rare image nicely illustrates the narrow entrance typical of a Blackdown Hills whetstone mine.
The following is my transcript of a column in the Waverly Dispatch, Volume 34, Number 3, 15 January 1926, which can be seen here: Library Of Virginia.
Old English Industry Now Practically Dead
"The whetstone or scythestone industry, which formerly existed at Blackborough and Sainthill, on the Blackdown range, Devon, England, 800 feet above the sea, is now almost extinct.
Founded nearly two hundred years ago, the industry used to provide employment for large numbers of men, women and youths. Now only one worker remains and his attachment is so strong that, despite the loneliness of his calling and the health-impairing nature of the work, he cannot divorce himself from the "dear old hills".
This solitary whetstone craftsman is John Rookley, who, although more than sixty years old, still burrows under the hills and unearths, shapes and dresses the stones which are regarded as unequaled for the sharpening of steel.
Rookley's basing hammer
Photo used with permission
The demand for whetstones has diminished astonishingly of late years. Crops are no longer reaped with the scythe; carborundum from the United States is used extensively, and small Welsh stones are compressed for use as sharpeners."
The photo to the right was kindly supplied by the Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery, Exeter, and shows John Rookley's basing hammer which was donated to the museum by Rev. Edwin S. Chalk of Kentisbeare some time after John finally retired from mining.
The design of Rookley's tool is different to the one in the photo shown earlier and those in sketches from the 1800s by Fitton and Hutchinson, appearing less refined although it has what appears to be a profiling edge on the side. This could be because the blacksmith responsible may not have been familiar with the design, as several decades had passed since this tool was in more common use. It's also possible that this was made to John's personal specification, and of course the tools would have varied in any case depending on the blacksmith making them.
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Investigating The Remains
A Bit Of A Warning
Most of the mine collapses happened a long time ago and now appear as depressions in the ground of varying sizes, which in most cases are stable. However, many cavities still exist below ground and some are in the process of collapsing. It's wise to be careful when exploring these areas and to take someone with you because if you were to slip into one of these cavities, you may not be able to get out unaided and no-one would know you were there.
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Image 12 shows a hole open to the surface which was around a foot or so across and could pass for a badger hole, but below was a substantial cavity; when I stuck my head down it, the cavity appeared to be large enough to bury a small car, end up. The only reason the cavity wasn't open fully at the surface was because of the network of tree roots, which retained some soil and leaves: a perfect trap for the unwary.
Image 13 shows an area where a large sinkhole has appeared, complete with an old tyre for scale. This sinkhole is probably quite old and reasonably stable but you can't be sure, so areas like this are best avoided.
The General Locality
As far as I know, almost all of the whetstone mining in this area occurred on the western side of the Blackdown hills in an area stretching from Blackborough Common around the hill to as far as the Hembury Fort spur, the approximate areas of mining known to me being marked on the map in red. Looking at the map, it appears that the stones mainly occurred in the far west of the area, and mines situated slightly 'inland' of the western escarpment were generally less productive judging by the size of their spoil heaps and the number of mines.
Whetstone mine locations
The tunnels cut into the greensand required extensive timbering to prevent them from collapsing but when a mine was abandoned, the timbering (a valuable resource) was removed for re-use and the tunnel allowed to fall into disrepair. This usually left a gully or trench where the mine entrance had been and the early shallow parts of the tunnel had fallen in, and often there would be sunken ground further out where galleries had collapsed.
According to Stanes (1993), local opinion was that the mine entrances were deliberately collapsed once abandoned. This idea could have arisen due to the timbering being removed from abandoned mines for re-use allowing the tunnel to fall in, making the collapse seem intentional although it is possible that the collapsing of the tunnel was hastened to make it safe, preventing accidents befalling curious children, for example.
The spoil heaps are by far the most obvious evidence of whetstone mining to be found now, but in most areas the remains of the collapsed tunnels can still be made out. The poor condition of the tunnel remains isn't surprising really as they could be 200 years old or more and if covered with bracken or brambles, those old entrances become almost invisible. Sometimes the only clue to where a tunnel entrance may have been is by noting the position of the associated spoil heap: the entrance would have been level with the flat top of the spoil heap to ensure the barrows could be wheeled out easily.
It has been reported that mining activity around this region was so intense that the spoil heaps were visible from the Honiton to Cullompton road and the Exeter to Taunton line as an almost continuous white line along the edge of the hill, and looking at the mining locations on the map above, the spoil heaps would certainly have been visible and did, apparently, attract visitors who were keen to find out what was going on. Downes (1880) mentioned the sandbanks running along the high ground which he thought were "suggestive of a railway embankment".
Image 14
Spoil heap material
As an observation, the spoil from these mines was never white, although I can accept that the light yellow-brown colour of the sand would, when dry and with the sun shining on it, appear a lot lighter than the surrounding vegetation, and would certainly have stood out on the hillside. These days, most of the spoil heaps are covered with a good layer of dead organic matter, undergrowth, or both, meaning that the material they are composed of cannot readily be seen without a bit of work.
Image 14 shows part of a spoil heap after a bit of dodgy-looking and possibly litigable digging on my part, nicely showing the colour and composition of the waste material for your enjoyment. There are many pieces of sandstone present within the loose sand; some may be pieces discarded because they were too small to be useful or the wrong type of stone and others may be the waste rock resulting from the miner doing the rough shaping of the whetstones outside his mine.
About The LiDAR Images Used Here
The following sections use images generated using LiDAR data, gathered by firing a laser at the ground from an aircraft, and measuring the time taken for the light to return from the target to determine the height of the surface at that point. This technology has proved to be invaluable to archaeologists, and has proved useful in my research into these old mines.
LiDAR data © Environment Agency copyright and/or database right 2022. All rights reserved.
Screenshots thanks to Archi UK
Mining Around Blackborough Common
The best way to access the mines in this area is to park by the churchyard in Blackborough at grid reference ST 09426 09233 (what3words: momentous.lawful.stalemate), but be aware that this isn't a car park as such, so park considerately. Go up the track on the opposite side of the road which is a public right of way, then taking the fork to the right to access the mines above the village. If you carry on up the hill instead, forking left near the top at the old wooden fence, this will take you past more workings to the north and east of the common.
Image 15
Mines above Blackborough
There was evidently much activity going on in this area as a visit to this site will testify, and the workings continue on around the common in a clockwise direction from the village for some distance. The distance between the escarpment above Blackborough and the one on the opposite side of the common is less than 300 yards at the thinnest point, so I'd say there was good chance that some tunnels met in the middle somewhere, although I'm not aware of any reports of this happening in this location.
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Image 17 |
Image 16 shows a particularly large spoil heap above Blackborough. There are several of this size up here, with the mature beech tree giving some sense of scale; considering all this material was dumped over the side using just a barrow, the amount of work this represents is mind-boggling. Although much of the waste would have been used to backfill worked-out areas of the mine, the size of some of these spoil heaps suggest there must still be a lot of open space underground.
Image 17 shows a single collapsed mine entrance with the sides easily visible, entering the escarpment above the bench.
Image 18 |
Image 19 |
Image 18 shows a pair of collapsed adit entrances close to, and running parallel to each other. This is evidence of the re-working that went on in later years, where a second adit would be driven in next to the old, rather than the futility of opening a worked-out mine.
Image 19 shows another pair of adits. In some places especially on the opposite side of the common, several adits were driven in next to each other as part of the re-working exercise, and in one place I identified evidence of six parallel adit entrances; unfortunately due to the thicketry and my general incompetence, my photos of that were pretty useless.
Mining In Rhododendron Wood
The best way to access Rhododendron Wood is probably to park in the small car park (circled red on the map below) at grid reference ST 09550 06861 (what3words: decorate.shirtless.huts), which allows easy access to the bridle path through the woods which goes all the way through to Blackborough. The first half of the woods is owned by the Woodland Trust, the other half is in private ownership.
Image 20
Rhododendron Wood
There is good evidence of a geological bench here, but the track has been bulldozed to allow easy access for machinery and now provides a pleasant, level woodland walk, although in some places the track has been cut several feet lower than the original surface, leaving tunnel entrances and spoil heaps sitting quite a bit higher than the more recently cut track. The remains to be seen here are generally in a very overgrown condition so are difficult to examine, although a few good examples of the old tunnel entrances can be seen.
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Image 22 |
Image 21 shows one of the spoil heaps, this one being fairly large. Working seemed a bit sporadic along this path, as many of the spoil heaps are fairly small compared to those in other areas, suggesting less of the whetstone rock was to be found here.
Image 22 shows the remains of a single tunnel entrance in reasonable condition, the sides of the trench nicely illustrating the presence of a level bench at this point, with the entrance itself entering the rising escarpment to the rear.
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Image 24 |
Image 23 shows where another tunnel entrance once was; a careful look will show rubble banked up in front, the product of levelling and widening the track which although done after the mines were abandoned still appears to have been done a long time ago.
Image 24 shows a pair of tunnel entrances, evidence of re-working. The ends of both of these have rubble heaped in front where they meet the track, as have many of the entrances in this area.
Mining Around North Hill
The best way to access this area is to park in the small car park circled in yellow at grid reference ST 09715 06908 (what3words: fishnet.succumbs.dreading), or park in the Rhododendron Wood car park (circled red) and walk a short distance up the road to this car park. Take the bridle path going roughly south, this initially taking you above the workings but several areas of collapsed ground are visible from the path. The path continues for around half a mile, finally going down through the mining remains where they can be seen without leaving the path. The path finally climbs again and exits the woods onto the airfield of the Gliding Club.
Image 25
West of North Hill
Be aware that this is private property, so if you wish to stray from the bridle path you'd need to get permission from one of the land-owners; I am indebted to the DSGC for allowing me access the remains on their land. This area is fairly overgrown as you'd expect and it seems no-one has used the old miners' track since the mining ceased; the remains of many tunnels and spoil heaps can be seen here which seem to be generally well-preserved and don't appear to have been disturbed since the mining days.
In this region you can clearly see where the original line of mines and spoil heaps are, but later reworking has confused the area somewhat as many of the later mines had been opened above the old, and the spoil heaps from these, although not as big, tend to spill over the older workings.
Image 26 |
Image 27 |
Image 26 is of one of the many substantial spoil heaps in this area, as usual heavily overgrown.
Image 27 shows an old hedge bank which seems to pre-date the mining in this area, with a gap which the miners presumably created so their access track could pass through.
Image 28 |
Image 29 |
Image 28 shows one of the many adit entrances in this area, the tunnel entering the rising escarpment to the rear.
Image 29 shows another adit entrance. The heap to the left of this entrance may have been where the 'cutter' sat carving out his whetstones, leaving this pile of rubble.
Image 30 |
Image 31 |
Image 30 shows a pair of adit entrances, evidence of the reworking that went on in the mid to late 1800s.
Image 31 shows another pair of adit entrances, and the highly disrupted ground left behind from the reworking operations.
Mines Around Hembury Fort
For this area, park in the car park at grid reference ST 11262 03528 (what3words: shortage.composts.satin). There is an information board there with a route marked out, and by following this you can see spoil heaps and evidence of collapsed adit entrances, this being to the west of the road. Cross the road and go down through the woods to access the mining area to the east of the road; as far as I know there isn't public access to this part, but people do walk their dogs down there and I haven't heard of anyone getting shot as yet.
Image 32
Hembury fort area
Looking at the LiDAR map above, evidence of quite a bit of mining activity can be seen on both sides of the road with a few smaller workings continuing towards the right. There is good evidence that the northerly end of Hembury Fort has been undermined from both sides; there are six closely spaced parallel entrances to be seen on the easterly side indicating extensive reworking, and what appear to be two tunnel entrances to the west, although the cutting of the road (which must have been done after the mines were abandoned) has destroyed most of the evidence of these. Hints of the entrances on the bank above the road still exist along with the spoil heaps, which are on clearly marked private property.
It has been suggested that this may have been one of the last areas worked for whetstones; it is, after all, quite some distance from Blackborough and when Hutchinson visited Hembury Fort on August 24th 1874 he made a passing reference to the "heaps and inequalities on the western side of the hill" where mines appeared to have been dug into the fort ramparts themselves but he made no mention of other workings. However, De La Beche (1839) when commenting on the line of spoil heaps visible, said, "More interrupted lines may also be seen in the escarpment facing Broadhembury, and the continuance of the same concretions may be traced by the refuse heaps in several other places." This presumably refers in part to the workings to the west of the road at Hembury Fort.
A point of interest is that the width of the hill at the thinnest point, from the mines on one side to the mines on the other is around 200 yards; given that mining tunnels regularly exceeded this, it is reasonable to assume that many of these mines met in the middle or went right the way through, either intentionally or otherwise.
Workings east of the road
This area shows evidence of a considerable number of workings, with many collapsed mine entrances indicating they worked the ground at two levels here; there appears to be no indication of a geological bench at this location and the slope of the ground is far gentler than the escarpment on the other side of the road.
Image 33 |
Image 34 |
Image 33 shows a shot through the woods, with substantial spoil heaps in evidence to the left, with the tunnels entering the hill on the right. There is a minimal accumulation of organic material in this area, meaning that in some places the spoil heap material can be seen on the surface, without the need to remove the moss and rotting organic matter first.
Image 34 shows good evidence of a collapsed mine entrance, now just a trench in the hillside with my exploring buddy for scale. Despite apparently releasing fluid, he is just standing there as ordered.
Image 35 |
Image 36 |
Image 35 shows another single collapsed drift entrance, with the sides of the cut fairly well defined. Other collapsed entrances can just about be made out in the hi-res version of the image, in the background.
Image 36 shows evidence of a pair of tunnel entrances next to each other. In later years much of the area was re-worked, and they would have driven a new tunnel in adjacent to the old one, which would have been more productive and safer than simply trying to re-open an old worked-out, collapsed mine.
Workings west of the road
This region features a steep escarpment, and although the spoil heaps are easy to spot, the collapsed entrances are in a rather poorer condition.
Image 37 |
Image 38 |
Image 37 shows the track through the woods, with a spoil heap in the middle distance to the left of the track. This path shows signs that it may be a naturally occurring geological bench, which was co-opted as a track for the mines here; the locations of the collapsed entrances can be determined by the many trench-like structures where the tunnel entrances entered the hillside on the right, but these are now in such poor condition that a photo will show very little. Also evident are several areas of collapsed ground, not to be confused with the remains of entrances.
Image 38 shows evidence of a substantial tunnel entrance going into the hill, in this case being dug just below the track level. There is minimal ground sinkage above this, suggesting that much of the tunnel may still be intact.
Isolated Mining at ST 1079 0658
This area of woodland has in it some isolated smaller scale workings and can be found at grid reference ST 1079 0658. Note that this is on private property, and requires permission to access and certain restrictions must be adhered to if permission is granted. This location is over half a mile from the busier area west of North Hill with no evidence of mining in between; this could be simply because the landowner of this area was the only one willing to permit mining on their property.
Image 40 |
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Image 40 shows LiDAR topography with five distinct spoil heaps being visible, each with its own tunnel entering the hill and evidence of collapsed ground further out; there are more workings immediately to the west and east, but these were outside the area I had permission to examine. The only entrance that couldn't be located was the one corresponding with spoil heap 1, but I suspect that the cutting of the forestry track has obliterated the evidence. An interesting note is that the mines seem to have been worked in sequence, each time moving further west and higher up the hill judging by the way the later spoil heaps spill over the earlier ones; perhaps the miners learnt from the geology and adjusted location accordingly.
Image 41 shows spoil heap 4 as viewed from the flat top of spoil heap 3. Much vegetation is in evidence, making it difficult to examine the contents of the heaps in detail, although the sand and sandstone concretions are typical of that found on other whetstone spoil heaps. The heaps here are relatively small compared to ones in other areas suggesting that the mines weren't particularly productive and were relatively short-lived.
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Image 42 shows where the entrance to mine 2 was located, and the sides of the gully preceding the tunnel can be easily seen.
Image 43 shows the gully for entrance 3, although this one is in a poorer state. The pile of waste wood seems to have been dumped in the deeper part of the gully, possibly to act as a marker to prevent machinery accidentally getting stuck in the depression.
Isolated Mining in Sheldon Forest, sites A & B
Image 44
These mines are located in Sheldon Forest and can be accessed by parking in the small car park at grid reference ST 1127 0706 (what3words: seagull.contemplate.roost). This area of woodland is open to the public which implies it's OK to go off the prepared trackway to examine these workings; I didn't see any heads on spikes, which is always a good sign.
There is no evidence of collapsed ground above the entrance sites suggesting that these tunnels may be largely intact underground. There is also no evidence of re-working as appears to have happened in other areas, so I'm left wondering if maybe these mines weren't worked by the Blackborough gang, although this site is roughly the same distance from Blackborough as is North Hill (Upcott Penn.) so easily walked.
Site 'A' - grid reference ST 11579 07313
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Image 45 shows one of the two large spoil heaps at this location, and despite a good covering of trees and brambles, it's still possible to get an idea of its size especially in the higher resolution version of the image. This shows the spoil heap end-on, but both of them are a good 50 yards long or more and so consist of a large amount of waste material.
Image 46 shows where one of the adits was, and it seems that one of the digger blokes many years ago got interested in this bit and dug a fair bit of the entrance out. Whether he found an opening is unknown, but none exists now. There is good evidence of at least two adits for each spoil heap; there may have been more but due to forestry work disturbing the ground I can't be sure.
Site 'B' - grid reference ST 11825 07505
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Image 47 shows one of the three large spoil heaps at this location although it proved difficult to get a meaningful photo due to excessive treeage, as you can see. The heaps are covered with a lot of dead organic matter and the only places where the spoil material could be examined was where badgers had dug it out.
Image 48 shows the possible site of an adit; there were several possibilities for adit entrances at this site, but as the ground had been severely disturbed during past forestry work, I couldn't confirm that that's what any of them actually were.
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Further Information
BOOKS
Devon's Non-metal Mines - Richard A. Edwards (2011)
Available on ebay, Amazon etc.
The Devonshire Association Volume 125 (1993), pages 71 - 112:
Devonshire Batts: The Whetstone Mining industry and community of Blackborough, in the Blackdown Hills
- R. G. F. Stanes
Available from The Devonshire Association
INTERNET LINKS
Sharpening The Scythe
My transcript of a story published in 1854 about a whetstone miner and the disaster that befell him.
Peter Orlando Hutchinson
His diaries and sketches
Historic England Project No. 6634
See pages 119 - 125
HISTORIC PUBLICATIONS
Fitton (1836):
Google Books
'Observations On Some Of The Strata Between The Chalk And Oxford Oolite, In The South-East Of England'
by William Henry Fitton. See pages 235 - 238
De La Beche (1839):
Google Books
'Report On The Geology Of Cornwall, Devon And West Somerset'
by Henry T. De La Beche. See page 242
Downes (1880):
Report & Transactions of the Devonshire Association Vol 12 (1880):
'Blackdown'
by Rev. W. Downes. See pages 420 - 446
Downes (1882):
Report & Transactions of the Devonshire Association Vol 14 (1882):
'Chert Pits. A Stray Note on Blackdown'
by Rev. W. Downes. See pages 317 - 321
Woodward (1887):
Wikimedia.org
'The Geology Of England And Wales'
by Horace B. Woodward. See pages 393 - 394
Chalk (1910):
Report & Transactions of the Devonshire Association Vol 42 (1910):
'The Manor, Parish and Churches of Blackborough'
by Rev. Edwin S. Chalk. See pages 348 - 349
Taylor, Cleevely, Morris (1983):
Internet Archive:
'Predatory gastropods and their activities in the Blackdown Greensand (Albian) of England'
by J D Taylor; R J Cleevely; N J Morris
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